Two-Echelon Vehicle Routing Problem with Recharge Stations

In the age of the fourth industrial revolution, versatile solutions for manufacturing and logistics systems are required to increase the utilization, reliability, flexibility and cost efficiency. The diversified customers’ demands present manufacturing systems with new challenges (Tamás, 2017). Matrix production may become a suitable solution through configurable production cells, the transfer of parts and tools using automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and the separation of logistics from production. The in-plant supply of manufacturing and assembly cells in matrix production is based on autonomous electric vehicles. The design and operation of autonomous electric vehicles represent a special type of vehicle routing and scheduling problems because vehicles must be recharged and therefore the solutions of traditional routing problems cannot be used to optimize the operation of AGVs. This fact was the motivation for writing this paper. After this introduction, the remaining parts of the paper are divided into five sections. Section 2 presents a literature review to summarize the research background. Section 3 presents the model framework and mathematical model of two-echelon vehicle routing problem with recharge stations. Section 4 presents the used heuristic solutions, while section 5 presents the results of the numerical analysis. Conclusions and future research directions are discussed in the last section.

@article{agardi2019two,
  title={Two-echelon vehicle routing problem with recharge stations},
  author={Ag{'a}rdi, Anita and Kov{'a}cs, L{'a}szl{'o} and B{'a}nyai, Tam{'a}s},
  journal={Transport and Telecommunication Journal},
  volume={20},
  number={4},
  pages={305--317},
  year={2019}
}