A Survey on the Electric Vehicle Routing Problem: Variants and Solution Approaches

Abstract

In order to ensure high-quality and on-time delivery in logistic distribution processes, it is necessary to efficiently manage the delivery fleet. Nowadays, due to the new policies and regulations related to greenhouse gas emission in the transport sector, logistic companies are paying higher penalties for each emission gram of CO2/km. With electric vehicle market penetration, many companies are evaluating the integration of electric vehicles in their fleet, as they do not have local greenhouse gas emissions, produce minimal noise, and are independent of the fluctuating oil price. The well-researched vehicle routing problem (VRP) is extended to the electric vehicle routing problem (E-VRP), which takes into account specific characteristics of electric vehicles. In this paper, a literature review on recent developments regarding the E-VRP is presented. The challenges that emerged with the integration of electric vehicles in the delivery processes are described, together with electric vehicle characteristics and recent energy consumption models. Several variants of the E-VRP and related problems are observed. To cope with the new routing challenges in E-VRP, efficient VRP heuristics and metaheuristics had to be adapted. An overview of the state-of-the-art procedures for solving the E-VRP and related problems is presented.