Sustainable container distribution by alternatively fueled vehicles under customer and technical constraints

The scale of freight forwarding to the hinterland becomes an issue from the perspective of both – transport policy and cost efficiency of service providers. This problem is sharply visible in areas where ports, depots, inland intermodal terminals, exporters and importers are located, and full and empty containers satisfying demand and supply are frequently distributed creating a lot of traffic. Therefore solutions meeting the challenges of sustainable transport, responding to climate change and regulation of CO2 emissions are in need. In this paper, a variant of a Mixed Fleet Heterogeneous Dial-a-Ride Problem is proposed for optimal routing of trucks carrying full and empty 20-foot and 40-foot containers, with multiple pick-ups and deliveries. Transportation is performed by alternatively fueled vehicles (AFVs) for environmental reasons which causes a constraint of a limited driving range and a need of refueling. The main objective is minimising the total distance subject to matching the empty container demand and supply, necessary refueling of the trucks, and service time windows.