A mathematical model for vehicle routing problem under endogenous uncertainty

Abstract

In this study, a multistage stochastic programming (SP) model is presented for a variant of single-vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands from a dynamic viewpoint. It is assumed that the actual demand of a customer becomes known only when the customer is visited. This problem falls into the category of SP with endogenous uncertainty and hence, the scenario tree is decision-dependent. Therefore, nonanticipativity of decisions is ensured by conditional constraints making up a large portion of total constraints. Thus, a novel approach is proposed that considerably reduces the problem size without any effect on the solution space. Computational results on some test problems are reported.

Keywords:

• multistage stochastic programming
• endogenous uncertainty
• vehicle routing problem
• dynamic strategy
• decision-dependent scenario tree
• nonanticipativity constraints

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.