Green route planning to reduce the environmental impact of distribution

Distribution of goods involves massive deployment of vehicles whose emissions are a major concern for environmentalists. Factors such as speed, nature of the road, load carried and other vehicle parameters apart from the distance are known to affect the emissions as well as the consumption of fuel. Between the same pair of nodes, taking an alternative route with different lengths and velocities can result in reduced fuel consumption. Literature suggests that minimising the consumption of fuel results in reducing the emission of harmful gases and of particulate matter. We formulate a multiple-route-vehicle-routing problem to evaluate alternative routes between nodes and solve for minimising the fuel consumption. The results from trial data-sets provide insights into the impact of the solutions on the number of vehicles used, fuel consumed, distance travelled, travel time and cost. This paper provides a means of routing distribution vehicles so as to reduce their impact on the environment.