Legal aspects in road transport optimization in Europe

Road freight transportation is subject to several legal requirements having direct impact on the practical applicability of routes and schedules. The vast majority of vehicle routing literature, so far, has largely focused on physical constraints such as capacity limits, or customer requirements such as time windows for pickups and deliveries. This paper studies legal requirements for long-distance haulage in the European Union, identifies some major gaps in the current state-of-the-art in vehicle routing, presents approaches for overcoming this gap, and analyzes the impact of the legal requirements studied.