A NOTE ON DETERMINING OPERATING STRATEGIES FOR PROBABILISTIC VEHICLE-ROUTING

The stochastic vehicle routing problem is a problem of current importance and research interest. Applications include schoolbus routing, municipal waste collection, subscription bus scheduling, daily delivery of dairy goods, an a host of related transportation and distribution activities. This paper assumes that routes for vehicles have already been generated and focuses on determining operating stategies. That is, under what conditions should a driver return to the central depot in order to replenish his supply? A dynamic programming recursion is presented which addresses this question and it is shown that the optimal policy is of a rather simple form. Finally, an algorithm and example illustrate the policy.