Application of exact route optimization for the evaluation of a city logistics truck ban scheme

This paper presents an application of the exact solution approach for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Soft Time Windows based on the column generation scheme developed earlier by the authors, for evaluating a truck ban scheme from the environmental improvement aspect on a realistic logistics instance based on the Vehicle Information and Communication System data, which is an Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) application in Japan. Two different types of truck ban schemes are evaluated, one which denies truck entry on congested links (with average speeds lower than a threshold) and the other with and without the availability of the ITS-based data to freight firms. It was found that the Uniform truck ban on low travel speed links can result in a win-win situation, improving the environmental conditions as well as reducing the operation cost for freight carriers in a scenario where freight carriers do not have access to ITS-based travel time information. While the use of an exact optimization method and with ITS-based historical traffic information still helps in reducing environmental impacts, freight companies are slightly worst-off as far as the operation cost is concerned.