A simheuristic approach for freight transportation in smart cities

• Published in: 2017 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) pp. 3346 - 3357
• Main Authors: Reyes-Rubiano, Lorena S., Faulin, Javier, Calvet, Laura, Juan, Angel A.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.12.2017; Winter Simulation Conference (WSC). Proceedings
• Subjects: Algorismes; Algorithms; Algoritmos; ciudades inteligentes; ciutats intel·ligents; desarrollo sostenible; desenvolupament sostenible; Economics; efectes socioeconòmics; efectos socioeconómicos; freight handling; Fuels; manipulació de càrrega; manipulación de carga; Monte Carlo methods; mètodes Monte Carlo; métodos Monte Carlo; procesos estocásticos; processos estocàstics; Roads; Routing; ruta para vehículos; ruta per a vehicles; Smart cities; socio-economic effects; Stochastic processes; Sustainable development; vehicle routing
• ISBN: 1538634287; 9781538634288
• ISSN: 1558-4305; 1558-4305
• DOI: 10.1109/WSC.2017.8248051

In modern society, sustainable transportation practices in smart cities are becoming increasingly important for both companies and citizens. These practices constitute a global trend, which affects multiple sectors resulting in relevant socio-economic and environmental challenges. Moreover, uncertainty plays a crucial role in transport activities; for instance, travel time may be affected by road work, the weather, or accidents, among others. This paper addresses a rich extension of the capacitated vehicle routing problem, which considers sustainability indicators (i.e., economic, environmental and social impacts) and stochastic traveling times. A simheuristic approach integrating Monte Carlo simulation into a multi-start metaheuristic is proposed to solve it. A computational experiment is carried out to validate our approach, and analyze the trade-off between sustainability dimensions and the effect of stochasticity on the solutions.