The accelerated growth of cities, population increase and economic development have leveraged waste generation globally. This trend is expected to continue, with a significant increase projected in the coming years. Therefore, efficient waste management has become a crucial concern for local, national and international authorities. Transportation plays a key role in waste collection and disposal, being directly related to traffic congestion, fuel consumption and environmental pollution. Despite the existing studies on household waste collection, there is a gap in the literature regarding routing for residential waste collection in medium-sized cities, especially in emerging and frontier developing countries. Therefore, this study seeks through the science tree metaphor and PRISMA methodology, to find studies focused on the vehicle routing problem in waste collection operations, considering aspects such as Modeling approaches and solution techniques, applied Vehicle Routing Problems variants, objective functions, decision variables and constraints, applications in real environments, applied algorithms, and studies considering uncertainty and real conditions. A methodological outline of Vehicle Routing Problems in waste collection operations is presented, where central research topics are identified such as processes developed with Geographic Information System and their integration with exact methods, time windows, multi-objective capacitated vehicle routing problems, the application of stochastic models consider the uncertainty in waste collection, which has allowed including future prediction and optimization as prediction models, based on neural networks, to foresee uncertain conditions of the operations. This article analyzes the evolution in the optimization of municipal solid waste collection routes since 1964, highlighting the transition from iterative models to advanced technologies and multi-objective approaches. The importance of tools such as 3D Geographic Information System and heuristic/metaheuristic algorithms in improving planning and efficiency, despite limitations in the face of uncertainty, is emphasized. The systematic review shows a trend towards sustainable and efficient solutions, indicating future directions for research in urban waste management.

With the development of a new generation of information technology, smart elderly care plays an important role in promoting the construction of elderly care services. The emerging application tools provide door-to-door meal service for urban elderly groups, solving meal problems for special and ordinary elderly with different priority levels and penalty costs of violating time windows. Based on this, considering the personalized needs of the elderly group, this study examines the route optimization problem of cooperative delivery of elderly meals by trucks and robots, and builds a mixed integer programming model to minimize the total cost of the system. For large-scale problems, this study designs an improved adaptive large neighbourhood search algorithm that incorporates simulated annealing algorithm and artificial bee colony algorithm to avoid falling into local optimality. Experiments have proved feasibility and effectiveness of the algorithm and proposed the corresponding management insights from the aspects of delivery efficiency and service quality.

The rapid growth of online shopping has intensified the need for cost-effective and efficient delivery systems, posing a significant challenge for businesses worldwide. This study proposes an innovative two-phase methodology that uses a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach for efficient last-mile logistics with service options (ELMLSO) such as home delivery, self-pickup, and differently-priced services. This approach aims to streamline last-mile logistics by integrating these service options, resulting in a more comprehensive and effective delivery network that enhances customer satisfaction and maintains a competitive edge. The first phase employs the Ordinal Preference Analysis - Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution (OPA-EDAS) method to select optimal pickup and delivery centers. The second phase identifies the optimal route using a bi-objective mixed-integer mathematical model, striving to balance cost minimization and customer satisfaction maximization. The Normalized Normal Constraint Method (NNCM) is utilized to solve this model. The application of these methods results in considerable cost savings and improved customer satisfaction, offering valuable insights for managers within the last-mile logistics industry.

Efficiency in logistics is often affected by the fair distribution of the customers along the routes and the available depots for goods delivery. From this perspective, in this study, the Multi-depot Vehicle Routing Problem (MDVRP), by considering two objectives, is addressed. The two objectives in conflict for MDVRP are the distance traveled by vehicles and the standard deviation of the routes’ length. A significant standard deviation value provides a small distance traveled by vehicles, translated into unbalanced routes. We have used a weighted average objective function involving the two objectives. A Variable Neighborhood Search algorithm within a Chu-Beasley Genetic Algorithm has been proposed to solve the problem. For decision-making purposes, several values are chosen for the weight factors multiplying the terms at the objective function to build up a non-dominated front of solutions. The methodology is tested in large-size instances for the MDVRP, reporting noticeable results for managerial insights.

The efficient management of reverse supply chains, particularly the collection and remanufacturing of defective products, plays a critical role in reducing production costs and determining the final pricing of remanufactured products. While existing research extensively explores warranty policies and maintenance services to enhance customer satisfaction and profitability, the integration of vehicle routing for product collection and sustainability advertising strategies remains underexplored. Addressing this gap, this study introduces a comprehensive two-stage reverse supply chain model that captures the interactions between manufacturers (MFRs) and remanufacturers (RMFRs) through a Stackelberg game framework. Methods: The proposed model incorporates interactive production constraints, vehicle routing problem (VRP) for optimizing collection logistics, and sustainability advertising to influence consumer behavior towards remanufactured products. Utilizing mixed nonlinear programming (MINLP) and nonlinear programming (NLP) techniques, the model simultaneously optimizes pricing strategies, collection efforts, and advertising investments for both MFRs and RMFRs. Numerical analyses are conducted to solve the optimization problems, accompanied by sensitivity analyses to evaluate the impact of key parameters such as production costs, defect rates, and routing constraints. The numerical results demonstrate that increases in production costs for MFRs lead to higher selling prices, thereby reducing their profit margins and negatively impacting RMFR profitability due to decreased demand for remanufactured products. Sensitivity analysis reveals that higher defect rates (α ≥ 0.8) significantly diminish overall supply chain profitability by lowering customer acceptance of RMPs. Additionally, expanding the allowable vehicle routing distance L effectively reduces collection costs, enhancing RMFR profits and enabling greater investment in sustainability advertising. The study shows that the integration of VRP and advertising strategies proves crucial in balancing cost efficiencies and market competitiveness, ultimately fostering a more sustainable and profitable reverse supply chain.

Operations with Electric Vehicles (EVs) on logistic companies and power utilities are increasingly related due to the charging stations representing the point of standard coupling between transportation and power networks. From this perspective, the Multi-depot Electric Vehicle Routing Problem (MDEVRP) is addressed in this research, considering a novel hybrid matheheuristic approach combining exact approaches and a Chu-Beasley Genetic Algorithm. An existing conflict is shown in three objectives handled through the experimentations: routing cost, cost of charging stations, and increased cost due to energy losses. EVs driving range is chosen as the parameter to perform the sensitivity analysis of the proposed MDEVRP. A 25-customer transportation network conforms to a newly designed test instance for methodology validation, spatially combined with a 33 nodes power distribution system.

This article presents a novel algorithm based on the cluster first-route second method, which executes a solution through K-means and Optics clustering techniques and Nearest Neighbor and Local Search 2-opt heuristics, for the solution of a vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW). The objective of the problem focuses on reducing distances, supported by the variables of demand, delivery points, capacities, time windows and type of fleet in synergy with the model's taxonomy, based on data referring to deliveries made by a logistics operator in Colombia. As a result, good solutions are generated in minimum time periods after fulfilling the agreed constraints, providing high performance in route generation and solutions for large customer instances. Similarly, the algorithm demonstrates efficiency and competitiveness compared to other methods detailed in the literature, after being benchmarked with the Solomon instance data set, exporting even better results.

This paper proposes a matheuristic approach for the location-routing of industrial platforms of the pineapple supply chain problem. We have proposed a three-phase methodology to solve the considered problem. The first phase consists of obtaining the potential supply in terms of suitability and productivity, the potential location of platforms, and the times of the value chain echelons. In the second phase, a mathematical optimization model for the location problem of platforms considering the coverage in terms of timing is proposed. Finally, the final phase proposes a cluster-routing and a granular reactive tabu search approach for the routing phase. The proposed methodology uses official information on production times, speed, and capacity and georeferenced aptitude, spatial, economic, and land yield information for the first time. The proposed approach has been validated through scenarios, particularly pineapple exports for the Colombian country. The obtained results show the efficiency of the proposed approach.

Vehicle routing problems (VRPs) have usually been studied with a single objective function defined by the distances associated with the routing of vehicles. The central problem is to design a set of routes to meet the demands of customers at minimum cost. However, in real life, it is necessary to take into account other objective functions, such as social functions, which consider, for example, the drivers' workload balance. This has led to growth in both the formulation of multiobjective models and exact and approximate solution techniques. In this article, to verify the quality of the results, first, a mathematical model is proposed that takes into account both economic and work balance objectives simultaneously and is solved using an exact method based on the decomposition approach. This method is used to compare the accuracy of the proposed approximate method in test cases of medium mathematical complexity. Second, an approximate method based on the Iterated Local Search (ILS) metaheuristic and Decomposition (ILS/D) is proposed to solve the biobjective Capacitated VRP (bi-CVRP) using test cases of medium and high mathematical complexity. Finally, the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) approximate method is implemented to compare both medium- and high-complexity test cases with a benchmark. The obtained results show that ILS/D is a promising technique for solving VRPs with a multiobjective approach.

A practical distribution system that arises in the context of delivering liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) through cylinders is considered in this study. To meet all the challenging constraints, the model is explicitly considered as a simultaneous pickup and delivery single commodity truncated vehicle routing problem with the homogeneous fleet of vehicles. The aim of this problem is to find the optimal routes for the set of vehicles locating at the distributing agency (DA), which offers simultaneous pickup and delivery operations over single commodity (i.e. LPG cylinders) to a fixed subset (need not serve all delivery centers) of delivery centers at rural level. The model is designed using zero-one integer linear programming. For proper treatment of the present model, an exact Lexi-search algorithm (LSA) has been developed. A comparative study is performed between the LSA and existing results for the relaxed version of the present model. Further, the efficiency of the LSA is tested through numerical experiments over small and medium CVRP benchmark test instances. The extensive computational results have shown that the LSA is productive and revealed that the real solutions have more consistent than the integral solutions in the presence of truncation constraint.