A transdisciplinary framework for handling disruptions in vehicle routing with customer time windows Chapter in Scopus uri icon

abstract

  • The vehicle routing problem (VRP) consists of servicing several locations within a period under some requirements (customer time windows, work shifts, etc.). Unforeseen changes in those requirements during plan execution, alias disruptions, are common in practice. They pose significant challenges to logistics operations due to real-world circumstances' increasing unpredictability and delayed agility of the business. Stakeholders, such as customers, vehicle crews, company executives, or other third parties, are impacted qualitatively and quantitatively. Extensive research has been dedicated to VRP under disruptions, such as stochastic VRP (planned incorporation of uncertainty) and dynamic VRP (real-Time data changes during a running operation). However, academic literature on the latter involving multiple stakeholders is scant. This is the motivation for this work, which involves both management disciplines (like accounting, finance, marketing, and sustainability) and engineering fields (such as logistics, mathematical programming, and computer science). The contribution of this article is twofold: first, a transdisciplinary framework for addressing stakeholders and environmental needs for dynamic vehicle routing disruption management is proposed. Second, an industrial-size illustrative instance is solved to show the framework's benefits. Deviations from original plans tend to be the rule in many industries and significantly affect operations' carbon footprint. In addition, they affect businesses' sustainability (economic, societal, and environmental). Consequently, this approach might measurably mitigate negative impacts resulting from operational disruptions while pioneering transdisciplinarity in logistics. © 2025 The Authors.

publication date

  • October 14, 2025