A green vehicle routing problem with picking up and delivery based on an improved firefly algorithm

Abstract Transportation which plays an essential role in distribution impacts climate change and global warming. So, one of the critical problems in distribution is the green vehicle routing problem. This paper investigates a green vehicle routing problem with picking up and delivery and soft time windows for a single depot. The problem is developed as a single-objective mixed integer nonlinear programming model. The model aims to minimize fuel costs based on vehicle load and penalty costs for violating time windows while satisfying customer pickup and delivery demands simultaneously. This paper proposes an improved firefly algorithm based on chaotic initialization and differential evolution to solve the model. Results show that the proposed model minimizes carbon emissions while maximizing customer satisfaction. Compared with a traditional heuristic algorithm, the improved firefly algorithm has higher solved precision.