A new truck-routing approach for reducing fuel consumption and pollutants emission

The paper develops an approach to the time-constrained, multiple-stop, truck-routing problem that minimizes the fuel consumption and pollutants emission. Features of framework are; it minimizes the distance a delivery vehicle must travel with a heavy payload in a given tour by sequencing the customer visits such that heavier items are unloaded first while lighter items are unloaded later, and it considers the amount of fuel burned during the time a truck is detained at customer sites. Our simulations, based on the routing of an actual motor carrier, suggest the approach may produce up to 6.9% in fuel savings over existing methods.

Research highlights
► Presents a truck routing method that cuts fuel burns and pollutants emission.
► Fuel can be saved by reducing the distance a truck travels with a heavy payload.
► The method attains 4.9% to 6.9% fuel savings over the shortest-distance method.
► The method attains 1.0% to 3.1% fuel savings over the minimal-fuel method.