Vehicle Routing for the Last-Mile Logistics Problem

Abstract: Energy consumption is the major contributor associated with large and growing transportation cost in logistics. Optimal vehicle routing approaches can provide solutions to reduce their operating costs and address implications on energy. This paper outlines a solution to the single-depot capacitated vehicle routing problem with the objective of minimizing daily operation cost with a homogeneous fleet of delivery vehicles. The problem is solved using Simulated Annealing, to provide optimal routes for the vehicles traveling between the depot and destinations. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach is effective to recommend an optimal route and reduce operation cost. Supplementary information and video of our proposed approach can be found at: https://sites.google.com/view/ud-ids-lab/last-mile