Capacitated vehicle routing problem with time windows: A linear model and a case study of express courier

Given the importance gained by the e-commerce field in the recent years, this study investigates the issue of minimizing the delivery travel time of a real company located in the South of Italy and operating as a courier, express and parcel (CEP) service provider. The scenario under examination consists of a depot, three vehicles and several customers served by the CEP company. A Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (CVRPTW) model is formulated to optimize the deliveries to the customers for the targeted company and solved under the commercial software IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio. As outcomes, the model returns a simulated path covered by the vehicles and computes the corresponding travel time. Results show that with the proposed formulation, the time windows (TWs) of all customers are respected. Because the analysis is grounded on a real company, the results are expected to provide practical indications to logistics and supply chain managers, to maximize the performance of their delivery system.