The Periodic Vehicle Routing Problem




A municipality removes trash from various properties throughout a six-day period. This service can include residents, restaurants, and retail stores – all of which have different needs. For example, a popular restaurant may need daily visits, whereas a resident may need visited once per week.  This problem is referred to as a Periodic Vehicle Routing Problem (PVRP), an extension of the vehicle routing problem (VRP).  In the vehicle routing problem, multiple trucks are used to visit customers no more than once. In PVRP, multiple vehicles are used to visit a set of customers multiple  time over a defined period while minimizing time, distance, and fleet size. Our research describes heuristics implemented for solving the PVRP.