Variable Neighborhood Search for the Two-Echelon Electric Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

Increasing environmental concerns and legal regulations have led to the development of sustainable technologies systems in logistics, as many fields. The adoption multi-echelon distribution networks use environmentally friendly vehicles freight become major concepts for reducing negative impact urban transportation activities. In this line, present paper proposes a two-echelon electric vehicle routing problem. first echelon network, products are transported from central warehouses satellites located surroundings cities. This is achieved by means large conventional trucks. Subsequently, relatively smaller-sized distribute these demand points/customers proposed problem also takes into account limited driving range that need be recharged at charging stations when necessary. addition, considers time window constraints delivery customers. A mixed-integer linear programming formulation developed small-sized instances solved using CPLEX. Furthermore, we propose constructive heuristic based on modified Clarke Wright savings heuristic. solutions serve initial variable neighborhood search metaheuristic. numerical results show matches CPLEX context small problems. Moreover, it consistently outperforms with growing size difficulty instances.