Vehicle routing problem: recent literature review of its variants

Abstract

The vehicle routing problem is the most studied combinatorial optimisation problem. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of the research to date in vehicle routing problem variants. The literature is reviewed with a focus on research in three major variants of the vehicle routing problem, namely capacitated vehicle routing problem, mixed depot vehicle routing problem and vehicle routing problem with pickup and delivery. Journal articles from three academic databases, namely Taylor and Francis, Elsevier and Emerald, are selected and reviewed. Ample literature is available on this problem so to restrict the scope, we screened the journal articles using the above mentioned variants precisely, excluding those that are in combination with other variants. This review takes a closer look at 117 research articles selected from various journals. By presenting the past literature, we hope to motivate further research in the field.