Electric vehicle routing problem with time windows and cargo weight

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61947-3_12

There is growing interest in the utilization of electric vehicles (EVs) in logis-tics operations as they can cut dependency on fossil fuels, hence, signifi-cantly contribute to the efforts on reducing carbon emissions and air pollu-tion. However, their limited driving range still remains as a major barrier in their adoption despite the advancements in battery technology. In this study, we extend the well-known Electric Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows by taking into account the cargo weight, which may play a crucial role in the operational efficiency of the EVs since it can affect the energy consumption significantly. We present the mixed-integer linear pro-gramming formulation of the problem and perform an extensive experi-mental study to investigate the influence of load on the routing decisions. We solve small-size instances using a commercial solver, and for the large-size instances, we develop a Large Neighbourhood Search algorithm. The results show that cargo weight may create substantial changes in the route plans and fleet size.