Holistic analysis of the Vehicle Routing Problem: an approach for GIS-T

Abstract

Urban cargo transport movements, due to their characteristics and particularities, involve different dimensions and variables. As a result, it demands specific logistics costs, consisting of a relevant portion of the total business costs, being directly linked to the route taken by the vehicle fleet. In that way, it is necessary to define roadmaps for vehicles in order to minimize the total distance traveled, total cost and total elapsed time when supplying clients. With the development of hardware and software in the 90’s, complex Vehicles Routing Problems (VRP’s) (containing multiple clients and vehicles) started to being solved by iterative mathematical methods. Thus, this article aim to solve the VRP’s of a garlic-based products fabricate company using a Geographic Information System for Transportation (GIS-T), performing comparative analysis with the current company operations and presenting alternative scenarios that may provide any cost reduction.