Research On Electric Vehicle Routing Problem With Time Windows Under Limited Recharging Infrastructures

Due to global warming,many countries have stricter regulations on fuel vehicles.With the development of batteries and other technologies,the application of electric vehicles has gradually become popular,its market share and the charging infrastructure has gradually increased.In the near future,electric vehicles will become an important mode of transportation.Electric Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows（EVRPTW）is to replace fuel vehicles in the traditional vehicle routing problem with time windows into electric vehicles driven by electric energy to optimize the route.In city distribution,the number of public charging infrastructure is limited,and the characteristics of electric vehicles that need to be charged in the route and the charging time is long will greatly affect the solution of the problem.At present,there are more and more researches on EVRPTW,but only a small amount of research considers the factor of multiple distribution centers,so further improvement is needed.To enrich existing research and enlighten enterprises’ operation,based on the characteristics of electric vehicles,considering two cases of single distribution center and multiple distribution centers,mathematical models and genetic algorithm are proposed to make a profound study on electric vehicle routing problem under limited recharging infrastructures.At first,the market scale and policy environment of electric vehicles is introduced.Besides,the characteristics of electric vehicles and their application in city distribution as well as the importance of vehicle route optimization is analyzed.Then,considering the constraints of vehicles’ load capacity and battery capacity as well as customers’ time windows to minimize the total delivery cost,a model of a single distribution center electric vehicle routing problem with time windows is constructed.And a Genetic Algorithm is proposed to solve the problem.Then,a small-scale example and sensitivity analysis are conducted.In the meantime,the algorithm is compared with Particle Swarm Algorithm to verify the validity of it.After that,a model of multiple distribution centers electric vehicle routing problem with time windows is constructed.According to the idea of assigning customers to the distribution centers at first and then optimizing the vehicles’ routes in each distribution center,k-means algorithm and Genetic Algorithm are used to solve the problem.Large-scale example and sensitivity analysis are conducted at last.