An Approach to the Vehicle Routing Problem Considering Commute Time Costs and Pollutant Emissions

The transport of goods in Brazil occurs predominantly by road. Thus, logistics distribution companies are increasingly interested in finding delivery routes for their products to multiple customers at the lowest added cost. Thus, this article addresses the Vehicle Routing Problem, highlighting its relevance in reducing logistics costs associated with product distribution. The aim is to propose an optimisation approach that defines routes that minimise the total cost of transport, the costs of pollutant emissions and travel time. The methodology is based on the mathematical formulation of the problem, solved through the commercial solver CPLEX (C Programming Language Extended) and implemented through the AMPL (A Modeling Language for Mathematical Programming) programming language. The results are evaluated through the analysis of the model under different configurations, allowing the identification of their impacts on the efficiency and quality of the routes found.