Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Development of energy consumption optimization model for the

electric vehicle routing problem with time windows
Yiyong Xiao a, Xiaorong Zuo b, Ikou Kaku c, Shenghan Zhou a, *, Xing Pan a
a
School of Reliability and Systems Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China
b
China Aerospace Academy of System Science and Engineering, Beijing, 100854, China
c
Department of Environmental Management, Tokyo City University, Yokohama, 224-8551, Japan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Electric vehicles (EVs) are promising transportation tools for supporting green supply chain and cleaner
Received 1 August 2018 production. In contrast to traditional fossil fuel-powered vehicles, which usually have a short range at
Received in revised form lower speeds, EVs have a much longer (even double) range when traveling at lower speeds than high
12 March 2019
speeds. This feature has a major impact to the vehicle routing problem when EVs are used in the fleet.
Accepted 29 March 2019
Available online 3 April 2019
This study investigated the electric vehicle routing problem with time window (EVRPTW) considering
the energy/electricity consumption rate (ECR) per unit of distance traveled by an EV as a function of the
speed and load, referred to as EVRPTW-ECR for simplicity. As a consequence, the maximum range of an
Keywords:
Electric vehicle
EV is estimated dynamically according to its speeds and loads along the route. A mixed-integer linear
Green vehicle routing problem programming (MILP) model was developed for EVRPTW-ECR, where the EV’s speed was treated as a
Mixed-integer programming continuous decision variable and the battery capacity, instead of a constant distance, was taken as the
Continuous optimization range restriction. Two linearization methods, i.e., the inner approximation and outer approximation,
were introduced to handle the nonlinear relationship between the traveling speed and travel time with a
given parameter ε to control the maximum permissible error. Computational experiments were carried
out based on Solomon’s instances to test the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed model and
methods, thereby demonstrating that the MILP model can be solved optimally for up to 25 customers by
the CPLEX solver and partially optimized for large instances of up to 100 customers by using a heuristic
approach.
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction such as the energy-minimizing VRP by Kara et al. (2007), the

The high use of fossil fuel-powered vehicles throughout the
world in recent decades has led to the emission of large volumes of
CO2, which is a well-known greenhouse gas (GHS), and they ac-
count for approximately three-quarters of the total emissions due
to transportation activities (IEA, 2016). The transportation section
was the second largest contributor to greenhouse gases, where it
was responsible for 23% of the global CO2 emissions in 2014 (IEA,
2016). A number of fuel/emission-oriented VRP models have been
developed that consider the balanced optimization of monetary
costs and environmental concerns for fossil fuel-powered vehicles,
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: xiaoyiyong@buaa.edu.cn (Y. Xiao), zuoxiaorong710@163.com
(X. Zuo), kakuikou@tcu.ac.jp (I. Kaku), zhoush@buaa.edu.cn (S. Zhou), panxing@
buaa.edu.cn (X. Pan).
emissions-based time-dependent VRP by Figliozzi (2010) and Jabali
et al. (2012), the pollution routing problem by Bektas and Laporte
(2011), the fuel consumption rate consideration VRP by Xiao et al.
(2012), the low carbon routing problem by Zhang et al. (2015),
and the green vehicle routing and scheduling by Xiao and Konak
(2015, 2016, 2017).
In recent years, electric vehicles (EV) have been introduced as
alternative-energy vehicles for commercial and personal uses, and
their market share has increased at a rapid rate, e.g., by more than
50% annually in China where the numbers of EVs sold in 2015, 2016,
and 2017 were 331,000, 507,000, and 777,000, respectively (IEA,
2018). The boom in the popularity of EVs is due mainly to their
environmentally friendly characteristics, such as no local green-
house gas emissions, low noise pollution, and high energy effi-
ciency, which can help logistics companies to attain a green image
from an increasing number of socially and environmentally aware
customers (Desaulniers et al., 2016). Government’s regulatory

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.03.323
0959-6526/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
648 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663

Hooks (2012) proposed another version of EVRP, called the green

List of acronyms
Acronym Meaning
GHS Green house Gas
ECR Energy/electricity consumption rate
EV Electric vehicle
VRP Vehicle routing problem
EVRP Electric vehicle routing problem
EVRPTW Electric vehicle routing problem with time
window
EVRPTW-ECR Electric vehicle routing problem with time
window considering energy consumption rate
EVTP Electric vehicle touring problem
GVRP Green vehicle routing problem
IEA International Energy Agency
INS Iterative neighborhood search
IPO Iterative partial optimization
MILP Mixed integer linear programming
MIP Mixed integer programming
NEDC New European Driven Cycling
SVR Speed varying range
support is also an important factor that promoted the use of EVs in
both public transportations and individual travels (Li et al., 2016).
According to the life cycle assessment method by Wu et al. (2018),
the total life cycle GHG reduction potential of battery EVs will
gradually reach 13.4% in 2020. Recent sustainability analysis and
practical estimation methods of life cycle carbon emission by EVs
considering power plant can be found in Fern
andez (2018), and
Casals et al. (2016), and Xiao et al (2011). In addition to their
environmental benefits, EVs are attractive from a cost perspective
compared with conventional fossil fuel-powered vehicles. The cost
of the electricity consumed by an EV is only about 10%e15% of the
cost of the gasoline/petrol consumed by a conventional vehicle
when traversing the same distance.1
The electric vehicle routing problem (EVRP), which involves the
use of commercial EVs in the logistics distribution/service field, is
one of the latest extensions of the vehicle routing problem (VRP)
and it has attracted much attention from researchers in recent
years (Lin et al., 2014, 2016; Demir et al., 2014). EVs have a limited
travel range and recharging is inconvenient during trips, so the
primary challenge related to the EVRP is how to incorporate the
visits to recharge stations into the route optimization. In some
recent EVRP models, the visits to charging stations are optimized
during trips, such as in the green vehicle routing problem (GVRP)
(Erdog an and Miller-Hooks, 2012; Felipe et al., 2014; Andelmin and
Bartolini, 2017), battery-swapping EVRP (Yang and Sun, 2015; Hof
et al., 2017; Jie et al., 2018), partial recharging EVRP (Felipe et al.,
2014; Keskin and Çatay, 2016; Bruglieri et al., 2017), EVRP consid-
ering a mix of battery-swapping and partial recharge (Schiffer and
Walther, 2017), and the EVRP with a nonlinear charging function
(Montoya et al., 2017).
Conrad and Figliozzi (2011) were the first to model the
recharging vehicle routing problem, assuming that EVs with
limited travel ranges are allowed to recharge at certain customer
locations in order to complete their deliveries. Erdog an and Miller-
1
The amount of electricity (or gasoline) consumed by an EV (or a conventional
car) for traveling 100 km at 60 km/h is approximately 10e20 kWh (or 10e20 L),
costing 5e10 (or 60e120) RMB according to the average electricity (or gasoline)
price in China.
vehicle routing problem (GVRP), which involves using “alternative
energy vehicles” in the fleet that need to visit alternative fueling
stations throughout the trip. In GVRP, alternative fueling stations
are copied multiple times and treated as special customers (dummy
nodes) that can be visited at a maximum of one time. Thus, the
GVRP was converted to be in accordance with the traditional VRP
frameworks and it can be solved by using heuristics developed for
traditional VRPs. Felipe et al. (2014) modeled the EVRP by consid-
ering different technologies for battery recharging where each
technology is associated with a constant recharging rate and a fixed
unit cost. Schneider et al. (2014) proposed an EVRP model with
time window constraints (EVRPTW), which aims to minimize both
the number of vehicles employed and the total traveled distance.
They developed a hybrid metaheuristics as the solution approach
by combining a variable neighborhood search with a tabu search
method. Bruglieri et al. (2015) considered a partial recharge policy
in the EVRPTW, where the battery is not always fully recharged
along the travel route. Hiermann et al. (2016) modeled the EVRP
with mixed types of EVs with different capacities, costs, and
recharging rates. Keskin and Çatay (2016) developed an adaptive
large neighborhood search algorithm for the EVRPTW and used a
partial recharge strategy. Similar strategy can also be found in
Bruglieri et al. (2015) and Hiermann et al. (2016). Montoya et al.
(2017) conducted the first and only study to formulate an EVRP
model by considering a nonlinear charging function. Lu et al. (2018)
proposed a multi-objective optimal load dispatch model for
microgrid that was accessed stochastically with a large-scale of
uncoordinated charging of EVs.
In some EVRP models, the EVs are assumed to have swappable
batteries and they are allowed to visit battery-exchange stations to
swap their batteries in a rapid manner, thereby avoiding a long
charging time. Zheng et al. (2014) studied the optimal design of
battery charging/swap stations in a distribution system. Adler and
Mirchandani (2014) presented a case study of an online routing
system for EVs, where multiple originedestination pairs need to be
optimally routed while considering battery swapping and reser-
vation. Yang and Sun (2015) studied the battery swap station
location-routing problem with capacitated EVs, where the routing
plan and selection of battery-exchange stations were optimized
simultaneously. Liao et al. (2016) studied the electric vehicle tour-
ing problem (EVTP) with battery swapping operations, which in-
volves finding a tour that visits all given vertices and returns to the
origin while stopping at a set of required battery switch stations.
They developed polynomial time algorithms for the EVTP with
fixed tours (i.e., all vertices visited in fixed orders). Schiffer and
Walther (2017) extended the EVRP model proposed by Yang and
Sun (2015) to include various practical factors, such as charging
station visits, time window constraints, and partial recharging
options.
In all of the previous EVRP models mentioned above, a general
assumption was made that the energy consumption of an EV over
an arc is a linear function of the distance traveled. Goeke and
Schneider (2015) conducted the first study to use a more realistic
energy consumption model for modeling the EVRPTW with a
mixed fleet (EVs and fuel vehicles). They developed a nonlinear ECR
for EVs by considering various factors, including the vehicle mass,
speed, and gradient of the terrain. However, in their EVRPTW
model, the travel times/speeds over all arcs were assumed to be
previously known constants. Thus, the electric energy consumption
over an arc was affected only by the weight of the cargo. Other
studies also developed energy consumption models for EVs. Yuan
et al. (2017) developed a physical-based statistical method for
evaluating the energy consumption of an EV during a driving cycle,
which was modeled based on the energy flow path, as well as
 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663
including the battery losses, electric motor losses, driveline losses,
brake losses and load losses. Fiori et al. (2016) developed an
instantaneous energy consumption model called the comprehen-
sive power-based EV energy consumption model, which can be
used to calculate the instantaneous ECRs of EVs with input variables
including the instantaneous speed, acceleration, and vehicle mass.
Liu et al. (2017) investigated the impact of the road gradient on the
electricity consumption of EV. Fetene et al. (2017) harnessed big
data to estimate the energy consumption of EVs and showed that
the ECR might vary greatly in a nonlinear manner with the driving
patterns and weather conditions.
With the rapid development of battery technology, the range of
EVs has grown steadily in the last few years. In 2018, many of the
latest EV models sold in China have a maximum range over 400 km
(in NEDC), which are relatively high and close to those of conven-
tional fossil fuel-powered vehicles (D1EV, 2008). To some extent,
this improvement has alleviated the so-called “range anxiety”
among drivers. In the near future, it is likely that a logistic EV may
not need to visit a charging (or battery-exchange) station during
the entire daytime because its fully-charged battery (in the depots
at night) is able to last for one whole day of logistics service.
However, another important feature of EVs, referred to as the
speed-varying range (SVR), is also crucial for the EVRP even though
the battery capacity has improved. That is, the maximum travel
range of an EV varies greatly with respect to different driving
speeds, and most EVs have a considerably higher (even double)
range when driving at a low speed than a high speed. For example,
the Model S 85 kWh, an EV brand produced by the Tesla Company
in the USA, has a range of 455 miles when driving at a low speed of
20 miles/h, but its range may decrease to 230 miles when driving at
a high speed of 70 miles/h (Musk and Straube, 2012). The BYD e6,
another EV brand in China, has a range of 560 km at a speed of
20 km/h but only 252 km when the speed increases to 100 km/h
(Liu, 2014). It should be noted that the SVR feature of EVs contrasts
with that of traditional fossil fuel-powered vehicles, which usually
have a relatively short range at low speed but a longer range at high
speed. In existing literature, the SVR feature of EVs has not been
considered in previously reported EVRP models, although it is
important for optimizing the traveling speeds in the EVRP in order
to balance the tradeoff between the travel range and travel time.
The PRP model of Bektas and Laporte (2011) introduced a fuel
consumption function into VRPTW based on the comprehensive
modal emission model (CMEM) by Barth et al. (2005) and Barth and
Boriboonsomsin (2008). However, the CMEM model was developed
for fossil fuel powered vehicles where the energy efficiency is al-
ways at high speed, whereas the EVs, opposite to such a charac-
teristics, have always higher energy efficiency in lower speed.
This study investigated the EVRPTW considering dynamic ECRs
affected by the speeds and loads along the routes (EVRPTW-ECR for
short). Contributions of this study were on four folds listed as follows.
(1) The energy/electricity consumption rate (ECR) per unit of
traveled distance was introduced into the EVRPTW model
and ECR was considered as a joint nonlinear function of the
speed and load. Thus, the traveling speed acts as a contin-
uous decision variable to affect the maximum ranges of EVs
during route optimization. This is the first study to consider
the effects of the dynamic range of EVs in the EVRP.
(2) Two linearization methods were introduced, comprising the
inner approximation based on secant lines and the outer
approximation based on tangent lines, in order to approxi-
mate the nonlinear relationship between the travel time and
traveling speed.
(3) Based on the above folds (1) and (2), a mixed-integer linear
programming (MILP) model was developed for EVRPTW-ECR
649
and computational experiments were carried out based on
Solomon’s instances (Solomon, 1987) to verify the model and
analyze its characteristics.
(4) A heuristic approach was proposed for solving large-sized
problems with near-optimal solutions.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2,
the ECR function is modeled as a function of the speed and load,
and it is linearized with a piecewise linearization method. In Sec-
tion 3, the inner and outer approximations linearization methods
are presented for linearizing the nonlinear relationship between
the travel time and speed. The MILP model for the EVRPTW-ECR is
described in Section 4, as well as some theoretical propositions. In
Section 5, computational experiments are carried out and the re-
sults are analyzed. Finally, the paper is concluded in Section 6.
2. Modeling the ECR function for EVs
According to the electricity usage model described in Haaren
(2012) and Marmaras et al. (2017), the energy losses of an EV are
distributed into four categories: Aerodynamic, Tires, Drivetrain, and
Ancillary. Among them the Aerodynamic losses are the major factor
in the high velocity regime (>50 mph), as the air resistance,
calculated by 12Cd rAv2, is proportional to v2. Therefore, EVs have
better energy efficiencies when traveling at lower speeds, which is
in contrast to traditional fossil fuel-powered vehicles. Fig. 1 shows
the relationship between the driving range and speed for two EV
models (Roadster and Model S 85 kWh) produced by the Tesla
Company, which clearly demonstrates that the driving range varies
greatly as the speed increases from low to high. The most efficient
speed is around 15e25 mph, which is approximately twice as
efficient as high speeds.
Let the function L(v) represent the driving range of EV at speed v.
Then, the ECR can be defined as 1=LðvÞ, which represents the per-
centage of the total battery capacity consumed when traveling one
unit of distance at a constant speed, v. The ECR function is nonlinear
and a downward-canvas curve, which can be linearized using a set of
polylines (section lines). As shown in Table 1 and Fig. 2, several
discretized points were extracted from the ECR curves of Fig. 1 and
the linearity between the range and speed was analyzed. It can be
observed that the regression line for the ECR-speed relation of
Roadster is: y ¼ 2.695  105x þ 4.075  104, with an R2 value of
0.9668. For the Model S 85 kWh, the regression line is:
y ¼ 1.783  105x þ 5.786  104, with an R2 value of 0.9386. Table 2
shows the rangeespeed relationship for another EV model, BYD E6,
and its regression line is plotted in Fig. 3. The regression line for this
model is: y ¼ 2.634  105x þ 1.1711  103 and R2 ¼ 0.97616.
Since the R2 values of all these regression lines are very close to
1, so it is reasonable to consider approximately the ECR as a linear
function of speed. Thus, a line e ¼ Kv þ B can be used as a surrogate
for the ECR function of these EV models, where e represents ECR, v
is the traveling speed, and K and B are the pre-calculated slope and
intercept, respectively. Let ri (and rj) be the remaining battery po-
wer (as a percentage of the total battery capacity) for the vehicle
when arriving at nodes i (and j), and vij and eij be respectively the
speed and ECR of the vehicle traveling on selected arc (i, j). Then,
the following Eq. (1) can be used to model the electricity con-
sumption flow along the route:
8
< ri  rj ¼ Dij eij
e  Kvij þ B cði; jÞ; (1)
: ij
s  ri  1
where s is the safety threshold for the remaining power rate when
returning to the depot. It should be noted that Eq. (1) is only
650 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663

(A) Range vs. speed (B) Nonlinear ECR curve

Fig. 1. Examples of the relationships between the of range and speed for EVs
(Source: Musk and Straube (2012) at www.tesla.com/blog/model-s-efficiency-and-range).

Table 1
Relationship between the range and speed for EVs.

Constant speed (v) Roadster Model S 85 kWh

miles/h km/h Driving range ECR (1/km) % Driving range ECR (1/km) %

20 32.2 656.5 km 0.15% 731.8 km 0.14%

30 48.3 590.3 km 0.17% 697.5 km 0.14%
40 64.4 499.1 km 0.20% 624.6 km 0.16%
50 80.5 417.0 km 0.24% 540.1 km 0.19%
60 96.6 348.6 km 0.29% 458.0 km 0.22%
70 112.7 289.4 km 0.35% 387.4 km 0.26%
80 128.8 243.7 km 0.41% 323.6 km 0.31%

0.5%
0.4%
0.5%
0.4%
Roadster Model S 85kWh
0.4% 0.3%
ECR (1/km)

0.3%
ECR (1/km)

0.3% 0.2%
0.2%
0.2%
0.1%
0.1% 0.1%
0.0%
0.0% 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 Speed (km/h)
Speed (km/h)
Fig. 3. Linearity of the ECR functions of speed for the BYD E6 model EV.
Fig. 2. Linearity of the ECR functions of speed for the Roadster model and Model S
85 kWh.
suitable for an ECR function that can be linearized with an R2 value
very close to 1. In order to approach a general, nonlinear, and
downward ECR function more accurately, a piecewise linearization
Table 2 with multiple secant lines can be applied as a surrogate of the ECR
Relationship between the range and speed for the BYD E6 model EV. curve such that the inequality eij  Kvij þ B in Eq. (1) may be
Constant speed (v) Maximum range (L) ECR (1/km) % replaced with eij  Kq vij þ Bq , where q2Q and Q represent the set of
consecutive secant lines. Note that the piecewise linear function
20 km/h 560 km 0.18%
40 km/h 454 km 0.22% allows the decision variable, e.g., the speed vij, to take value in a
60 km/h 371 km 0.27% continuous domain with controllable error ranges, whereas a dis-
80 km/h 322 km 0.31% cretization approach, e.g., in the PRP model, just allows the decision
100 km/h 252 km 0.40% variable to pick a discrete value from a set of pre-defined
(Source: Liu (2014) at auto.enorth.com.cn/system/2014/08/06/012065564.shtml). candidates.
 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663 651

The EV’s load increases the rolling resistance of its tires against
the road surface and the rolling bearings. The energy consumed due
to the rolling resistance is normally assumed to be proportional to
the total weight of the vehicle and the length of the distance tij=D ij/vij
traveled, but independent of the traveling speed (Bektas and
Laporte, 2011). For an EV used in logistic services, the load may
vary greatly along the delivering/pickup tour, and thus it has a p1
marginal effect on the ECR. It is assumed that the marginal increase
in the ECR function for an EV due to the load effect can be estimated

Time tij
by a constant coefficient 4, which is a parameter related to the EV
itself that indicates the unit increment in the ECR after adding one
unit of additional load. Thus, let fij be the load on the EV when
traveling the arc (i, j), Eq. (1) can then be modified to Eq. (2) to p2
consider the load effect on the ECR for the EV.
8 p3
>
> r  rj ¼ Dij eij
>
< i ...
eij  Kq vij þ Bq þ 4fij cði; jÞ; q2Q (2) pn
>
>
>
:s  r  1
i

vmin Speed vij vmax

3. Bounding the travel time to speed using piecewise
linearization Fig. 4. Outer approximation of the nonlinear timeespeed curve.

In order to take the speed as a continuous decision variable in a

formula in Eq. (5).
linear EVRPTW model, the nonlinear relationship between the
travel time and traveling speed, i.e., the timeespeed curve, must be ( .
kp ¼ m22p v2min
linearized. In the following, two piecewise linearization methods . cp ¼ 1; 2; :::; h (5)
are introduced. The first is called outer approximation piecewise bp ¼ 2m1p vmin
linearization, which uses a set of tangent lines to surrogate the
timeespeed curve. The second is called inner approximation piece- It should be noted that kp and bp in Eq. (5) do not depend on the
wise linearization that uses a set of secant lines to surrogate the distance Dij, so they can be pre-calculated before starting to solve
timeespeed curve. Both methods guarantee that the maximal the problem. All of the arcs with different lengths can use the same
approximation error incurred by linearization is controlled within a set of kp and bp in the linearization of the timeespeed relation if they
given range. have the same level (ε) of accuracy requirements. In Table 3, the
values of kp and bp are provided for ε ¼ 1.0% and 0.1%, respectively,
which can be applied directly to existing EVRP models.
3.1. Outer approximation linearization
3.2. Inner approximation linearization
When traveling a given arc (i, j) with distance Dij, the nonlinear
timeespeed curve, i.e., tij ¼ Dij =vij , can be approximated by using a In addition to the outer approximation, the inner approximation
P
set of tangent lines on the basic curve Xij ¼ 1 cj2N0 , denoted uses a set of consecutive secant lines, denoted as P ¼ {p1, p2, … }, to
ði;jÞ2A surrogate the nonlinear curve tij ¼ Dij/vij, starting from the mini-
as P ¼ fp1 ; p2 ; :::g, starting from the minimum speed (vmin) to the mum speed (vmin) to cover the maximum speed (vmax), as shown in
maximum speed (vmax), as shown in Fig. 4. Fig. 5.
Each tangent line p2P is expressed as tij ¼ kp vij þ bp . If the Similarly, to guarantee that the maximum approximation error
objective involves minimizing a function that depends on the travel rate is within a given percentage, tij )60Dij =vij , the minimum
time, then the travel time tij can be bounded to the traveling speed number of secant lines can be determined by Eq. (6) as follows.
vij by using the following set of linear constraints.
 
lnðvmax =vmin Þ
tij  Dij kp vij þ Dij bp ; cp21; 2; :::; h (3) h¼ (6)
ln m
It should be noted that Eq. (3) can approximate the nonlinear pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
where m ¼ 1 þ 2ε þ 2 ε þ ε2 . It should be noted that parameter m
curve aj  ai  tij þ gi þ wi þ Mð1  Xij Þcði; jÞ2A0 more accurately
has a different expression compared with that used in the outer
when more number of tangent lines is used. Let t 0 ij be the
approximation in Eq. (4).
approximated time, in order to guarantee that the error rate of t 0 ij is
By starting with the first secant line from the minimum speed
within a given number ε%, i.e., ri  rj  Dij eij  Mð1  Xij Þcði; jÞ2A0 ,
vmin, the following formula can be deduced to determine the slopes
the minimum number of tangent lines h can be determined by Eq.
ði;jÞ ði;jÞ
(4) as follows. and intercepts of the secant lines, t ¼ K p v þ Bp ; p2P, for a given
  arc (i, j) with a distance Dij.
lgðvmax =vmin Þ
h¼ þ1 (4) 8
lgm >
> K
ði;jÞ
¼
1
,Dij
>
< p
pffiffiffi pffiffiffi m 2p1
,v2min
where m ¼ ð1 þ εÞ=ð1  εÞ and QaS indicates the minimum ; cp ¼ 1; 2; :::; h (7)
>
> mþ1
integer that is greater than or equal to a. The slopes and intercepts >
: Bpði;jÞ ¼ p ,D
of the tangent lines can be calculated by the following recursive m ,vmin ij
652 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663

Table 3
kp and bp for the outer approximation of the traveling speed in [20, 100] km/h.

ε p kp bp ε p kp bp

1.0% 1 2.500000E-03 1.000000E-01 0.1% 9 9.084862e-04 6.028221e-02

2 1.673554E-03 8.181818E-02 10 8.005079e-04 5.658650e-02
3 1.120313E-03 6.694215E-02 11 7.053633e-04 5.311735e-02
4 7.499615E-04 5.477085E-02 12 6.215273e-04 4.986090e-02
5 5.020403E-04 4.481251E-02 13 5.476555e-04 4.680408e-02
6 3.360766E-04 3.666478E-02 14 4.825638e-04 4.393467e-02
7 2.249769E-04 2.999846E-02 15 4.252086e-04 4.124117e-02
8 1.506044E-04 2.454419E-02 16 3.746704e-04 3.871281e-02
9 1.008178E-04 2.008161E-02 17 3.301388e-04 3.633945e-02
18 2.909001e-04 3.411159e-02
0.1% 1 2.500000e-03 1.000000e-01 19 2.563251e-04 3.202031e-02
2 2.202862e-03 9.386931e-02 20 2.258596e-04 3.005725e-02
3 1.941040e-03 8.811448e-02 21 1.990150e-04 2.821453e-02
4 1.710338e-03 8.271246e-02 22 1.753610e-04 2.648479e-02
5 1.507055e-03 7.764162e-02 23 1.545185e-04 2.486109e-02
6 1.327934e-03 7.288165e-02 24 1.361531e-04 2.333693e-02
7 1.170102e-03 6.841351e-02 25 1.199706e-04 2.190622e-02
8 1.031029e-03 6.421929e-02 26 1.057115e-04 2.056322e-02

4.1. Problem description

The proposed EVRPTW-ECR model is described on a directed

tij=D ij/vij graph G ¼ (N, A), where N ¼ {0, 1, 2, …, n} is the set of nodes rep-
resenting the customers and depot (denoted by 0);
A ¼ fði; jÞji; j2N; isjg is the set of customer/depot arcs that an EV
can select to traverse. Set A may not include all combination of node
pairs in N, so graph G may be either complete or incomplete. Each
arc, (i, j), in A is associatedwith a known distance, Dij, and a pair of
Time tij

lower/upper speed limits, vij ;v ij . A fleet of homogenous EVs are to

p1
be dispatched to serve the customers in N by starting from and
returning to a depot. Each customer, i, in N must be served once and
is associated with a demand, ai, a service duration time, gi, and a
time window [Si, Ei] in which the service must start. Each EV has a
p2 maximum battery capacity, CB, and a maximum load capacity, CL. All
EVs leave the depot with fully-charged batteries and return to the
p3 ... depot with residual battery capacities above a safe level, s. Vehicles
are not allowed to recharge outside. All EVs have an identical ECR
function that depends on the continuous decision variables
comprising speed and load. The ECR function with zero load is
vmin Speed vij vmax linearized with a set, Q, of secant/tangent lines, with a pair of
slopes, Kq, and an intercept, Bq, for each line, q, in Q. For each
Fig. 5. Inner approximation of the nonlinear timeespeed curve. additional one unit of load, the ECR of the EV increases by a con-
stant rate, 4. The objective is to minimize the total travel cost,
and bp ¼ mpm,v
Let kp ¼ m2p11,v2 þ1
min
, and thus Eq. (3) can also be including the fixed cost of using EVs and hiring drivers, the variable
min
cost of electricity/energy consumed along the tours, and the vari-
used to bound the travel time tij to the traveling speed vij in the case
able wages of drivers related to the length of the travel time/
of minimizing an objective that is positively related to the traveling
distance.
time. Note that kp and bp are also independent of the distance Dij,
The main challenge when solving the EVRPTW-ECR is that an EV
and thus they can be pre-calculated before starting to solve the
has a highly sensitive ECR, which is affected mainly by the speed
problem. Table 4 shows the values of kp and bp for ε ¼ 1.0% and 0.1%
and load, where a high speed and heavy load may considerably
for using the inner approximation.
lower the maximum range. An EV can choose to either serve more
Note that the outer/inner approximation may result an
customers at lower speed (with a longer total travel time and
approximated travel time (for an arc with given speed) that is
higher variable costs) or to serve fewer customers at higher speed
smaller/greater than (or equal to) the exact travel time, but it
(this will require that more EVs fulfill the deliveries with a higher
guarantees that the maximum deviation is within a given param-
fixed cost). The time-window requirements from customers make
eter ε. In Section 4.3, a post-optimization procedure is presented for
the problem even more complex to optimize. Therefore, the
eliminating the approximation errors caused by the outer/inner
EVRPTW-ECR problem considered in this study involves not only
approximations.
optimizing the vehicle routes in a similar manner to the traditional
VRPs, but also optimizing the traveling speeds and loads in order to
4. Problem description and formulation
ensure an overall optimization of the total cost. In Section 4.2, a
MILP model of EVRPTW-ECR is developed, which is based on the
In this section, the EVRPTW-ECR problem is formally described
linearization approaches introduced in Sections 2 and 3. Some
and an MILP model is developed, as well as several theoretical
theoretical analysis of the MILP model are provided in Section 4.3.
propositions for the solution obtained by the proposed MILP model.
 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663 653

Table 4
Kp and Bp for the inner approximation of the traveling speed in [20, 100] km/h.

ε p Kp Bp ε p Kp Bp

1.0% 1 2.047506e-03 9.095012e-02 0.1% 9 8.532484e-04 5.845004e-02

2 1.373396e-03 7.448838e-02 10 7.518830e-04 5.486838e-02
3 9.212258e-04 6.100617e-02 11 6.625597e-04 5.150620e-02
4 6.179261e-04 4.996420e-02 12 5.838480e-04 4.835005e-02
5 4.144833e-04 4.092081e-02 13 5.144872e-04 4.538730e-02
6 2.780209e-04 3.351424e-02 14 4.533664e-04 4.260609e-02
7 1.864867e-04 2.744825e-02 15 3.995067e-04 3.999531e-02
8 1.250888e-04 2.248018e-02 16 3.520455e-04 3.754451e-02
9 8.390518e-05 1.841133e-02 17 3.102227e-04 3.524389e-02
18 2.733684e-04 3.308424e-02
0.1% 1 2.346807e-03 9.693614e-02 19 2.408924e-04 3.105693e-02
2 2.068008e-03 9.099617e-02 20 2.122745e-04 2.915385e-02
3 1.822330e-03 8.542018e-02 21 1.870564e-04 2.736739e-02
4 1.605838e-03 8.018587e-02 22 1.648342e-04 2.569039e-02
5 1.415065e-03 7.527231e-02 23 1.452520e-04 2.411616e-02
6 1.246956e-03 7.065984e-02 24 1.279962e-04 2.263839e-02
7 1.098818e-03 6.633000e-02 25 1.127903e-04 2.125117e-02
8 9.682795e-04 6.226549e-02 26 9.939086e-05 1.994896e-02

4.2. A mixed-integer linear programming model ri Remaining energy rate (%) of EV when arriving at customer i
ai Arrival time (min) at customer i
The parameters and decision variables used to describe the wi Vehicle’s waiting time (min) at customer i
EVRPTW-ECR are listed as follows. fij Load of vehicle on arc (i, j)
Parameter notations:
The objective function is to minimize a comprehensive cost
N Set of nodes, including the depot function that includes the fixed cost for EVs and drivers, the vari-
N’ Set of customer nodes, N0 ¼ N\f0g able cost by electricity/energy consumption, and the variable cost
A Set of arcs that an EV can select to traverse, A ¼ fði;jÞji2N;j2 related to traveling time (or traveled distance). Thus, the MILP
N; isjg model for EVRPTW-ECR is formulated as follows.
A’ Set of arcs linking customer nodes, A0 ¼ fði;jÞji2N0 ;j2N0 ;isjg, 2
and A0 3A X X X
εMaximum allowed error in the timeespeed linearization. Min: Total Cost ¼ F X0j þ CB fe Dij eij þ fd 4 tij
i, j Index of nodes, i ¼ 0, 1, 2, …, n (the depot is represented by 0) j2N 0 ði;jÞ2A ði;jÞ2A
3
n Total number of nodes (including the depot)
X
Dij Distance (km) of arc (i, j) þ ðgi þ wi Þ5 (8)
vij Minimum traveling speed (km/h) on arc (i, j) i2N0
vij Maximum traveling speed (km/h) on arc (i, j)
di Demand of customer i Subject to:
gi Service time (in minute) for customer i P
[Si, Ei] Time window for starting to serve customer i (1) Xij ¼ 1 cj2N0
ði;jÞ2A
CL Load capacity of EV P
(2) Xij ¼ 1 ci2N0
CB Maximum battery capacity of EV (kWh) ði;jÞ2A
F Fixed cost per EV and driver (RMB) (3) tij  60ðDij kp vij þ Dij bp Þ  Mð1  Xij Þcði; jÞ2A; p2P
fe Cost consumed per unit of battery energy (RMB/kWh) (4.1) aj  t0j  Mð1  X0j Þcj2N 0
fd Driver’s variable wage rate (RMB/min) (4.2) aj  ai  tij þ gi þ wi  Mð1  Xij Þcði; jÞ2A0
P Set of secant lines for the timeespeed linearization, pre- (4.3) aj  ai  tij þ gi þ wi þ Mð1  Xij Þcði; jÞ2A0
determined by parameter ε (5) eij  Kq vij þ Bq þ 4fij  ð1  Xij Þcði; jÞ2A; q2Q
kp, bp Slope and intercept of the pth secant line in P, p2P. (6.1) 1  rj  D0j e0j  ð1  X0j Þcj2N0
Q Set of secant lines for the ECR function of EV (6.2) ri  rj  Dij eij  ð1  Xij Þcði; jÞ2A0
Kq, Bq Slope and intercept of the qth secant line of the ECR (6.3) rj  ri  Dij eij þ ð1  Xij Þcði; jÞ2A0
function in Q, q2Q . (6.4) ri  s þ Di0 ei0  ð1  Xi0 Þci2N0
4Additional ECR for one unit of load (6.5) ri  s þ Di0 ei0 þ ð1  Xi0 Þci2N0
sSafety threshold for residual battery capacity when returning (7) v ij Xij  vij  vij Xij cði; jÞ2A
to the depot (8) Si  ai  Ei ci2N0
P P
M A large number (9) fji  fij ¼ di ci2N0
ðj;iÞ2A ði;jÞ2A

Binary decision variables: (10) fij  CL Xij cði; jÞ2A


ai  0; wi  0; ri  0ci2N0
(11)
Xij 1/0 indicate whether arc (i, j) is traversed by an EV or not Xij 2f0; 1g; vij  0; tij  0; eij  0; fij  0cði; jÞ2A
Non-negative continuous decision variables:
In the model given above, Constraints (1) and (2) ensure that
vij Traveling speed (km/h) on arc (i, j)
each customer is visited only once. Constraint (3) is the piecewise
tij Traveling time (min) spent on arc (i, j)
linearization of the timeespeed relationship surrogated by using a
eij ECR of EV when traveling on arc (i, j) with a load fij
set of lines to approximate (inner or outer) the nonlinear curve of
654 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663
tij ¼ Dij/vij, as discussed in Section 3. The constant, i.e., 60, in
Constraint (3) is used to convert the time unit from hours to mi-
nutes. Note that Constraint (3) takes effect only for Xij ¼ 1 and it will
always hold for Xij ¼ 0 because M is a large number. Constraint
(4e1) requires that the arrival time at the first customer by a vehicle
must be greater than or equal to the traveling time spent on the first
arc. Constraints (4e2) and (4e3) strictly determine the time flow
between customers. Constraint (5) bounds the vehicle’s ECR to the
speed and load for each selected arc, as discussed in Section 2. The
first two terms, i.e., Kq vij þ Bq , represent the part of ECR contributed
by the speed vij. The third term, i.e., 4fij , represents the part of ECR
contributed by the load fij. The last term, i.e., ð1  Xij Þ, guarantees eij
to take a positive value for Xij ¼ 1 and to be zero if Xij ¼ 0. Con-
straints (6e1)e(6e5) strictly calculate the flow of the remaining
power rates for the EVs among customers, and they guarantee that
the residual battery capacity when returning to the depot is above
the given safe level s. It should be noted that Constraints (6e3) and
(6e5) can be removed for a non-strict flow without affecting the
objective cost. Constraint (7) restricts the traveling speed within
the lower/upper speed limit range. Constraint (8) ensures that the
service starting time is within the customers’ time window.
Constraint (9) determines the vehicle’s load flow throughout the
tour. Constraint (10) restricts the EV’s load to not exceeding its
maximum load capacity, C, and forces fij to be zero when arc (i, j) is
not selected in any tour. Constraint (11) gives the domains of all the
decision variables.
It should be noted that all of the expressions in the MILP model
formulated in Eq. (8) and Constraints (1)e(11) are linear, and thus
the model can be solved directly by commercial optimization
solvers such as Lingo and CPLEX. However, due to the approxima-
tion methods used in the linearization, the solution delivered
directly from an optimization solver needs to be checked of its
feasibility. In the following subsection, a post-optimization pro-
cedure is provided for eliminating the approximation errors and
guaranteeing the solution feasibility, as well as some theoretical
analysis on the solution optimality.
4.3. Eliminating approximation errors
A solution of the MILP model might not be an accurate solution
of the original EVRPTW-ECR problem because the piecewise line-
arization method may cause differences between the approximated
travel time (bounded by Constraint (4)) and the actual travel time
(calculated by tij ¼ 60Dij/vij). Thus, a post-optimization procedure,
as stated in Fig. 6, can be applied to the obtained solution, which is
designated as p, to eliminate the difference, and thereby obtain an
accurate and feasible solution p*. The post-optimization procedure
first re-calculates the traveling time (or traveling speed) for all
selected arcs by using tij )60Dij =vij (or vij )60Dij =tij ) if the inner
//Solution obtained by Eq. (8) and Constraints (1)–(11)
Post-optimization procedure ( )
(1) Minimize the traveling time by solving the MILP model given by Eq. (9) under
Constraints (1)–(12)
(2) For all selected arcs (i, j), let tij 60Dij/vij (for inner approximation only)
For all selected arcs (i, j), let vij 60Dij/tij (for outer approximation only)
(3) Fix variables xij, vij, and tij to their current values
(4) Remove Constraints (3) and (7), and solve the simplified MILP model to obtain
*
solution
(5) Return *
Fig. 6. Main steps of the post-optimization procedure.
approximation (or outer approximation) is used in the timeespeed
linearization. It should be noted that the traveling time must be
minimized before applying the post-optimization procedure. The
traveling time in the solution is allowed to contain part of the
waiting time because they both make an equally weighted contri-
bution to the objective value.
X
Min: Total Travel time ¼ tij (9)
ði;jÞ2A
Subject to Constraints (1)e(11) and Constraint (12), as follows:
" #
P P P P
(12) F X0j þ CB fe Dij eij þ fd tij þ ðgi þ wi Þ
j2N 0 ði;jÞ2A ði;jÞ2A i2N 0
 objðpÞ,
Constraint (12) guarantees that the new solution p0 based on p is
still an optimal solution of the MILP model formulated in Eq. (8) and
Constraints (1)e(11), where obj (p) indicates the objective value of
solution p.
Next, the variables xij, vij, and tij are fixed to their current values
(i.e., treated as input parameters) and the solver is called to solve
the simplified MILP model represented by Eq. (8) and Constraints
(1)e(2), (4)e(6), and (8)e(11). Note that Constraints (3) and (7)
should not be included, in order to obtain an accurate solution p*
based on p’. It should also be noted that solving the simplified MILP
model is highly efficient because the routes and speeds are already
fixed, and the solver only needs to re-optimize the rest variables,
such as the departure, arrival, and waiting times, and the ECR. The
main steps of the post-optimization procedure are outlined in
Fig. 6.
Proposition 1. Feasibility: For a feasible solution p to the MILP
model formulated using Eq. (8) and Constraints (1)e(11) as well as
with inner approximation on the timeespeed relationship, a feasible
solution p* of the original EVRPTW-ECR (i.e., without using the
timeespeed approximation and using a nonlinear ECR function) al-
ways exists that has the same routes and traveling speeds as p and a
lower (or equal) objective value.
Proof. Let tij and eij be the travel time and the ECR of a traveled arc,
e.g., (i, j), in solution p. According to the inner approximation method,
the inequality tijt*ij holds, where t*ij is the actual traveling time on arc
(i, j) calculated by t*ij ¼ Dij/vij, and eije*ij, where e*ij is the accurate
ECR on arc (i, j) calculated by the nonlinear ECR function. The solution
p can always be transformed into p* by using the following three steps:
(1) replace tij with t*ij for all arcs on the routes of solution p, (2) replace
eij with e*ij for all arcs on the routes of solution p, and (3) add tij  t*ij to
the waiting time at customer/depot nodes in order to keep the arrival
time at all customers unchanged. Thus, p* is a feasible solution of the
original EVRPTW-ECR. Furthermore, the total time in p* is the same as
that in p, and e*ij is equal to or smaller than eij, so the objective value of
solution p* is less than or equal to that of p.
According to Proposition 1, the post-optimization procedure in
Fig. 6 can always be applied to convert any feasible solution of the
MILP model with inner approximation into a feasible solution of the
original EVRPTW-ECR.
Proposition 2. Optimality: For an optimal solution p* of the original
EVRPTW-ECR problem, a feasible solution p always exists for the MILP
model formulated using Eq. (8) and Constraints (1)e(11), and with
outer approximation based on the timeespeed relationship that has
the same routes and traveling time as p*.
Proof. Let t *ij , v*ij , and e*ij be the travel time, speed, and ECR of a
traveled arc, e.g., (i, j), respectively, in solution p*. Obviously, the
inequality t *ij ¼ Dij =v*ij holds, and t *ij and v*ij will satisfy Constraint (3) if
the outer approximation method is used. The e*ij can always be
 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663
increased to a larger value in order to satisfy Constraint (5). Thus, the
new solution, designated as p, is a feasible solution of the MILP model
and it has the same routes and traveling speeds as those of p*.
According to Proposition 2, it is possible to use the MILP model
with outer approximation to find a solution, p, that has the same route
and traveling time as those of the optimal solution of the original
EVRPTW-ECR problem. In addition, according to the following steps,
the solution p can be transformed into an optimal solution of the
original EVRPTW-ECR problem: (1) update vh  vmax by vij )Dij =tij
and (2) update eij with the accurate value calculated by using the
nonlinear ECR function based on vij and fij . Thus, the new solution is an
optimal solution of the original EVRPTW-ECR problem under the
condition that all of the speeds on the traversed arcs do not exceed the
upper speed limit. This rule can be used to judge whether the obtained
solution is guaranteed to be optimal or not.
Proposition 3. Actual Feasibility: For a feasible solution p of the
MILP obtained with the inner approximation on the timeespeed
relationship, after the post-optimization procedure, p is actually a
feasible solution of the problem EVRPTW if the setting for the safe
threshold on the EV’s residual battery capacity, e.g., s, satisfies s  ε,
where ε is the maximum deviation in the ECR function linearization.
Proof. This is straightforward. The maximum difference in the
approximation error incurred by the linearization of the ECR function
can be compensated for by setting the safe threshold s, which gua-
rantees that the EV returns safely to the depot before its battery is
empty. Furthermore, the inner approximation guarantees a safe trav-
eling time for each arc so the time window requirements of the cus-
tomers can actually be met. Thus, the solution is actually feasible for
the EVRPTW-ECR problem.
5. Computational experiments
Computational experiments were conducted based on known
benchmark instances in order to test the proposed MILP model for
EVRPTW-ECR. The MIP solver CPLEX (version 12.6.0.1) was used to
solve the benchmark problem instances. All of the computational
experiments were performed on a PC server with two 2.2 GHz Intel
16 Core Processors and 110 GB of memory.
5.1. Test instances
The test instances were derived from three sets of Solomon’s
VRPTW problem instances (Solomon, 1987), including nine in-
stances from the R1-type set (randomly generated customer loca-
tions), 12 instances from the C1-type set (clustered customer
locations), and eight instances from the RC1-type set (mixture of
random and clustered locations). All of the instances comprised 100
customers that are to be served by a homogeneous fleet of EVs,
where they started from and ended at one depot. Each customer
Table 5
Parameters of the BYD E6 model EV used in the experiments.
Notation Description
4 Additional ECR for one unit of load
s Minimum remaining power (%) when vehicle returns to depot
CL Load capacity of vehicle
CB Battery capacity of vehicle (kWh)
vmin Minimum speed (km/h)
vmax Maximum speed (km/h)
F Fixed cost per electric vehicle plus driver (RMB)
fe Cost of consuming battery energy per unit (RMB/kWh)
fd Driver’s variable wage rate (RMB/m)
K Slope of the surrogate line of ECR function
B Intercept of the surrogate line of ECR function
655
was associated with a demand, a time window during which the
service must start, and a service time. It was assumed that the
distance unit was kilometer and the time unit was minute.
The homogeneous EVs that served these customers were assumed
to be the BYD e6 model and their parameters are listed in Table 5.
The maximum ranges of a no-load BYD e6 under different velocities
are shown in Table 2 in Section 2 and the ECR function was line-
arized using the regression line obtained in Fig. 3 which is:
ECR ¼ 2.634  105v þ 1.1711  103 (10)
The regression line was explained in Section 2. The vehicle was
assumed to have a load capacity of 200 units in order to be
consistent with Solomon’s VRPTW instances. The cost rates for the
vehicle/driver and the variable cost rates for electricity consump-
tion and the driver’s wage were initialized based on an investiga-
tion of a real logistics company in Beijing.
5.2. Computational results and analysis
First, the CPLEX solver was used to solve all 29 instances with
only the first 25 customers, i.e., n ¼ 26 (including the depot) under
the parameter setting of ε ¼ 0.1%. A time limit of 7200 s was set for
all the test instances, such that the best feasible solution found so
far would be returned with a relative optimality gap (R. Gap, %) if
the optimal solution was not found within the time limit. Both the
outer and inner approximations were used and compared in the
experiments. The results are shown in Table 6, where the Obj.
column indicates the objective value, i.e., the minimum total cost
(¥), of the final solution, the V. column shows the number of EVs
used, the Dis. column indicates the total distance traveled by all EVs,
the Tr. T. column indicates the total traveling time of all EVs,
including the waiting time and service time, the T. column shows
the consumed CPU time in seconds, and the R. Gap column presents
the relative optimality gap for the final solution at termination.
As seen from Table 6 that using either the outer or inner
approximation with the MIP solver obtained the optimally solved
solutions (indicated by R. Gap ¼ 0.0%) for 20 (out of 29) test in-
stances within the given time limit. The other nine instances were
terminated with the best feasible solutions obtained so far and
their associated relative optimality gaps. The computational time
used for different problem instances varied considerably, where it
ranged from a few seconds to 2 h depending on the problem
structure. Clearly, the solutions differed with the inner and outer
approximations. However, the differences were quite small among
the 20 optimally solved solutions, with an average difference of
only 0.45. For the solutions that terminated at the time limit, the
differences were relatively large, with an average of 31.72. In
addition, among the solutions with identical routes (i.e., with the
same total distance), the solutions obtained based on the outer
Value
1.6E-06
5%
200
57
20
100
300
4
0.3
2.6340E-05
1.1711E-03
656 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663

Table 6
Computational results on the 25-customer instances with the parameter ε ¼ 0.1%.

Problem Ins. Outer approximation Inner approximation

Type ID Obj. V. Dis. Tr. T. T. R. Gap Obj. V. Dis. Tr. T. T. R. Gap

(¥) (km) (m) (s) (%) (¥) (km) (m) (s) (%)

R1-type R101 2759.58 7 601.53 1025.86 1 0.0 2767.79 7 609.67 1019.90 1 0.0
R102 2090.50 5 524.65 897.63 3876 0.0 2090.46 5 524.65 886.70 4277 0.0
R103 1704.08 4 431.77 776.94 7280 35.3 1704.06 4 431.77 767.97 7293 34.0
R104 1410.68 3 445.43 635.43 7297 26.8 1410.59 3 445.43 632.51 7204 26.7
R105 1776.97 4 519.77 746.22 10 0.0 1776.97 4 519.77 738.89 10 0.0
R106 1705.22 4 452.23 719.22 7205 36.4 1705.19 4 452.23 709.35 7209 33.9
R107 1380.80 3 419.97 643.69 7213 27.7 1380.80 3 419.97 639.08 7214 28.0
R108 1334.52 3 376.09 617.82 7283 23.5 1334.54 3 376.09 612.84 7313 23.7
R109 1694.46 4 443.66 725.72 7216 30.1 1694.37 4 443.66 714.07 7216 22.0
R110 1674.48 4 420.92 682.26 7306 38.3 1391.21 3 419.48 616.61 7259 25.8
R111 1391.26 3 429.07 638.46 7234 31.2 1393.22 3 432.89 647.00 7215 24.6
R112 1332.01 3 369.05 582.61 7227 30.6 1332.01 3 369.05 579.53 7206 31.2
AVG 1687.88 3.9 452.84 724.32 5762 23.3 1665.10 3.8 453.72 713.71 5785 20.8
C1-type C101 1818.70 3 237.52 2587.66 6 0.0 1818.67 3 237.52 2582.27 9 0.0
C102 1786.48 3 221.64 2499.27 237 0.0 1786.43 3 221.64 2491.75 372 0.0
C103 1774.10 3 207.89 2483.80 635 0.0 1774.06 3 207.89 2476.75 361 0.0
C104 1771.34 3 204.92 2480.47 3488 0.0 1771.30 3 204.92 2473.52 2453 0.0
C105 1802.45 3 237.52 2517.13 12 0.0 1802.40 3 237.52 2509.07 12 0.0
C106 1835.38 3 251.31 2623.63 9 0.0 1835.35 3 251.31 2618.38 7 0.0
C107 1795.45 3 215.66 2567.97 55 0.0 1795.41 3 215.66 2562.06 24 0.0
C108 1784.27 3 217.71 2513.65 445 0.0 1784.24 3 217.71 2507.54 248 0.0
C109 1779.19 3 214.37 2491.09 910 0.0 1779.14 3 214.37 2483.82 884 0.0
AVG 1794.15 3.0 223.17 2529.41 644.11 0.0 1794.11 3.0 223.17 2522.79 486 0.0
RC1-type RC101 1326.65 3 365.23 646.19 2 0.0 1326.59 3 365.23 636.90 3 0.0
RC102 1300.24 3 337.57 619.99 170 0.0 1300.19 3 337.57 612.31 1134 0.0
RC103 1291.22 3 328.73 614.20 362 0.0 1291.18 3 328.73 607.23 4080 0.0
RC104 1275.77 3 308.25 601.65 902 0.0 1275.73 3 308.25 594.06 122 0.0
RC105 1389.98 3 421.84 674.04 4739 0.0 1389.97 3 421.84 666.32 5028 0.0
RC106 1302.34 3 341.98 629.29 5602 0.0 1302.28 3 341.98 618.30 70 0.0
RC107 1259.55 3 297.38 578.00 390 0.0 1259.51 3 297.38 570.62 3972 0.0
RC108 1257.17 3 294.99 581.77 218 0.0 1257.11 3 294.99 571.76 971 0.0
AVG 1300.37 3.0 337.00 618.14 1548 0.0 1300.32 3.0 337.00 609.69 1923 0.0

Note: Bold face indicates the optimally solved values.

approximation always had slightly lower objective values than
those obtained based on the inner approximation. However, all of
the differences were controlled within the range specified by the
parameter ε. In particular, the R101 instance was solved optimally
based on both the outer and inner approximations, but the objec-
tive gap (i.e., 8.22) was much higher than the average (i.e., 0.45).
This is because the R101 instance had tighter time windows which
leaded to the two solutions (based on the inner and outer
approximation respectively) had different routes.
In Table 7, a detailed solution of the R101 instance was provided
as an example for readers to take a look into the scheduling details,
which were solved with the parameter ε ¼ 0.1% and using inner
approximation. It was observed that the selected arcs were opti-
mized with different traveling speeds, the battery capacities of EVs
were consumed along the routes, and the remaining power rate (rj)
declined but was guaranteed to be above the safe threshold (i.e., 5%)
when returning to the depot. In this solution, three vehicles were
used to serve the customers at a fixed cost of 900, an electricity
consumption cost of 57  4  67.63% ¼ 154.19, a traveling time-
related cost of 0.3  (281.04 þ 100 þ 0.05) ¼ 114.33, and a total
cost of 1168.52.
Next, the performance of the MILP model was tested based on

Table 7
Detailed solution for the R101 instance with 10 customers (Obj. ¼ 1168.52, n ¼ 11, ε ¼ 0.1%, inner).

Veh. Arc (i, j) Distance Load fij Speed vij (km/h) Tra. T. tij (min) Ari. T. ai T. Window (Sj, Ej) Ser. T. gi (min) Waiting T. wi (min) En. used Remaining rj
No. Dij (km) Dij  eij

1 (0, 2) 18.00 10 55.01 19.63 60 (50, 60) 10 0.03 4.74% 95.26%

(2, 6) 16.40 3 33.97 28.97 99 (99, 109) 10 0.00 3.40% 91.86%
(6, 0) 11.18 0 55.01 12.19 0 (0, 230) e 0.00 2.93% 88.93%
2 (0, 5) 20.62 66 55.01 22.49 44 (34, 44) 10 0.01 5.62% 94.38%
(5, 7) 20.62 40 45.83 26.99 81 (81, 91) 10 0.01 5.03% 89.35%
(7, 8) 12.21 35 68.08 10.76 101.76 (95, 105) 10 0.00 3.69% 85.66%
(8, 10) 26.25 26 70.84 22.23 134 (124, 134) 10 0.00 8.08% 77.58%
(10, 1) 15.56 10 54.91 17.00 161 (161, 171) 10 0 4.10% 73.48%
(1, 0) 15.23 0 55.01 16.61 0 (0, 230) e 0 3.99% 69.49%
3 (0, 9) 32.02 48 55.01 34.92 97 (97, 107) 10 0 8.63% 91.37%
(9, 3) 15.00 32 58.60 15.36 122.36 (116, 126) 10 0 4.15% 87.22%
(3, 4) 25.00 19 56.36 26.62 158.98 (149, 159) 10 0 6.72% 80.50%
(4, 0) 25.00 0 55.01 27.27 0 (0, 230) e 0 6.55% 73.95%
Total 253.07 281.04 100 0.05 67.63%
 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663 657

Table 8
Experimental results with different values of ε (n ¼ 26, outer approximation).

ID ε ¼ 5% ε ¼ 1% ε ¼ 0.5% ε ¼ 0.1% ε ¼ 0.5% ε ¼ 0.01%

Obj. T.D. % Obj. T.D. % Obj. T.D. % Obj. T.D. % Obj. T.D. % Obj. T.D. %

C101 1816.28 3.95 1818.61 0.57 1818.49 0.40 1818.65 0.06 1818.63 0.04 1818.66 0.01
C102 1783.95 5.00 1786.38 1.00 1786.29 0.50 1786.41 0.10 1786.40 0.05 1786.43 0.01
C103 1771.73 5.00 1774.01 1.00 1773.93 0.50 1774.04 0.10 1774.02 0.05 1774.05 0.01
C104 1769.00 5.00 1771.25 1.00 1771.17 0.50 1771.28 0.10 1771.26 0.05 1772.16 0.01
C105 1799.74 5.00 1802.34 1.00 1802.25 0.50 1802.38 0.10 1802.36 0.05 1802.39 0.01
C106 1824.97 3.09 1835.16 0.67 1835.23 0.35 1835.32 0.06 1835.31 0.03 1835.33 0.01
C107 1793.48 2.95 1795.37 0.60 1795.30 0.31 1795.39 0.06 1795.38 0.03 1795.41 0.01
C108 1782.04 4.42 1784.19 0.89 1784.10 0.46 1784.21 0.09 1784.20 0.04 1784.23 0.01
C109 1776.74 5.00 1779.09 1.00 1779.00 0.50 1779.12 0.10 1779.11 0.05 1779.13 0.01
AVG 1790.88 4.38 1794.04 0.86 1793.97 0.45 1794.09 0.09 1794.07 0.04 1794.20 0.01

Table 9
Experimental results with different values of ε (n ¼ 26, inner approximation).

ID ε ¼ 5% ε ¼ 1% ε ¼ 0.5% ε ¼ 0.1% ε ¼ 0.5% ε ¼ 0.01%

Obj. E.R. % Obj. E.R. % Obj. E.R. % Obj. E.R. % Obj. E.R. % Obj. E.R. %

C101 1820.26 1.54 1818.69 0.05 1818.78 0.16 1818.67 0.01 1818.69 0.01 1818.67 0.00
C102 1787.62 0.18 1786.44 0.00 1786.46 0.00 1786.43 0.00 1786.47 0.00 1786.44 0.00
C103 1775.04 0.00 1774.06 0.00 1774.08 0.00 1774.06 0.00 1774.09 0.00 1774.06 0.00
C104 1772.27 0.00 1771.30 0.00 1771.32 0.00 1771.30 0.00 1771.33 0.00 1771.30 0.00
C105 1803.52 0.00 1802.41 0.00 1802.42 0.00 1802.40 0.00 1802.44 0.00 1802.40 0.00
C106 1836.69 0.92 1835.54 0.29 1835.39 0.12 1835.35 0.02 1835.37 0.01 1835.34 0.00
C107 1796.25 0.00 1795.42 0.00 1795.43 0.00 1795.41 0.00 1795.44 0.00 1795.41 0.00
C108 1785.49 0.38 1784.26 0.00 1784.29 0.02 1784.24 0.01 1784.26 0.01 1784.24 0.00
C109 1780.16 0.00 1779.15 0.00 1779.16 0.00 1779.14 0.00 1779.17 0.00 1779.14 0.00
AVG 1795.26 0.34 1794.14 0.04 1794.15 0.03 1794.11 0.00 1794.14 0.00 1794.11 0.00

the nine C1-type instances with different values of ε. All of the
instances were solved to optimality by using the outer and inner
approximations with the parameters ε ¼ 5.0%, 1.0%, 0.5%, 0.1%,
0.05%, and 0.01%, respectively. The post-optimization procedure
was not applied in order to demonstrate how the parameter ε
affected the accuracy of the piecewise linearization used for the
timeespeed relationship. The experimental results are shown in
Tables 8 and 9 for outer and inner approximations, respectively. The
T.D. % column entries were calculated as R:Tr:T:Tr:T:  100%, and they
R:Tr:T:
indicate the time deviation causing by piecewise linearization,
P within the EV’s driving range so they do not reach the range limit.
where Tr. T. is the approximate travel time obtained by tij and
ði;jÞ2A
P
R. Tr. T is the accurate travel time calculated by ðDij =vij Þ. It can
ði;jÞ2A
be observed that the time deviations were always under the control
of the parameter ε, as the traveling times was always lower (or
higher) than the accurate value by a maximum of eε (or ε) for the
outer approximation (or inner approximation). A smaller value of
parameter ε will result in a closer approximated travel time to the
real travel time. The outer and inner approximations have the same
level of accuracy so either of them can be used to approximate the
nonlinear timeespeed relationship.
Next, an additional set of 10 new test instances were generated
in this paper, which were denoted as RA-type, where the customers
were randomly scattered in a larger rectangular region, i.e.,
180  180, in order to test the EV’s driving range limit. This is
because the customer locations of the Solomon’s instances are all
Each new instance had 10 customers with an equal demand of 10. It
was assumed that the customers did not have time windows and
that the vehicle’s load capacity was unlimited. Thus, the EV’s
driving range was the only restrictive condition. First, the 10 new
instances were solved with flexible traveling speeds (i.e., speed was
the decision variable). Next, the instances were solved with

Table 10
Solutions obtained under flexible and fixed traveling speeds (n ¼ 11, ε ¼ 0.1%, inner).

Fixed traveling speed Fixed driving

Problem Flexible 20 km/h 40 km/h 60 km/h 80 km/h 100 km/h Range (308 km)

Instance Speed Cost Dev.% Cost Dev.% Cost Dev.% Cost Dev.% Cost Dev.% Cost Dev.%

RA101 952.96 1341.67 40.8 1166.06 22.4 1171.57 22.9 1552.88 63.0 1979.18 107.7 1479.84 55.3
RA102 841.59 952.31 13.2 1125.75 33.8 1109.48 31.8 1506.52 79.0 1969.37 134.0 1103.22 31.1
RA103 964.53 1417.36 46.9 1209.25 25.4 1578.52 63.7 1622.57 68.2 2152.64 123.2 1572.47 63.0
RA104 733.12 878.05 19.8 1044.63 42.5 1030.86 40.6 1051.64 43.4 1493.00 103.7 1025.89 39.9
RA105 1236.98 1482.89 19.9 1258.19 1.7 1620.43 31.0 1667.88 34.8 2546.50 105.9 1614.05 30.5
RA106 765.72 902.47 17.9 1114.27 45.5 1111.80 45.2 1506.82 96.8 1575.36 105.7 1134.56 48.2
RA107 1162.39 1386.70 19.3 1186.29 2.1 1168.65 0.5 1531.11 31.7 2005.83 72.6 1496.32 28.7
RA108 874.33 969.08 10.8 1174.71 34.4 1182.21 35.2 1563.09 78.8 1614.03 84.6 1510.75 72.8
RA109 1218.04 1460.16 19.9 1241.07 1.9 1596.72 31.1 1630.42 33.9 2115.28 73.7 1590.69 30.6
RA110 887.91 976.23 9.9 1141.22 28.5 1124.45 26.6 1526.55 71.9 1574.69 77.3 1492.56 68.1
AVG 963.76 1176.69 21.8 1166.14 23.8 1269.47 32.9 1515.95 60.2 1902.59 98.8 1402.04 46.8
658 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663

Table 11
Average performance of the solutions for the RA-type instances (n ¼ 11, ε ¼ 0.1%, inner).

Average based on 10 test instances

Fixed Speed Vehicles used Total dis. Total time Total cost Fixed cost Energy cost Time cost CPU time

vij ¼ 100 3.7 753.41 452.05 1902.59 1110 656.97 135.61 16.8 s
vij ¼ 80 2.9 660.43 495.32 1515.95 870 497.35 148.60 33.9 s
vij ¼ 60 2.3 620.16 620.16 1269.47 690 393.42 186.05 42.7 s
vij ¼ 40 2 586.34 879.50 1166.14 600 302.29 263.85 67.8 s
vij ¼ 20 1.5 559.24 1677.72 1176.69 450 223.38 503.32 21.8 s
Fixed range 2.7 640.32 698.42 1402.04 810 382.51 209.53 198.8 s
Flexible 1.3 547.49 1034.66 963.77 390 263.36 310.40 97.7 s

constant speeds of 20 km/h, 40 km/h, 60 km/h, 80 km/h, and
100 km/h. Then, the EVs were assumed to have a fixed driving
range, i.e., 308 km (the number given by the manufacturer and
measured under the New European Driven Cycling (NEDC) stan-
dard), and the instances were solved with an additional constraint
which restricts the total distance traveled by each EV not exceeding
the fixed driving range.
The computational results are shown in Table 10, Table 11, and
Fig. 7, and they demonstrate that the variations in the traveling
speed had very large effects on the transportation costs. The solu-
tions produced with a fixed traveling speed always had higher
objective values (costs) than the solutions obtained with flexible
speed, with average cost deviations of 21.8%, 23.8%, 32.9%, 60.2%,
and 98.8% at fixed speeds of 20 km/h, 40 km/h, 60 km/h, 80 km/h,
and 100 km/h, respectively. This is because a higher speed
increased the ECR though, but it decreased the EV’s driving range
more significantly (and thus more EVs were required). The overall
increase in costs dwarfed the cost savings due to the shortened
delivery time. The solutions obtained with a fixed driving range
also had much higher costs, with an average of 46.8%, compared
with the solutions produce with flexible speed. This is because
more EVs were used. This indicates that the effect of considering
flexible speed in EVRPTW has significant improvements on tradi-
tional solutions with fixed speeds, with average cost saving rates
of 18.10%, 17.35%, 24.08%, 36.43%, and 49.34% when
compared to the cost obtained under fixed speeds of 20 km/h,
40 km/h, 60 km/h, 80 km/h, and 100 km/h, respectively. The
average cost saving rate could also be as high as 31.26% when
compared to the solution of assigning a fixed range to EVs.
The average performance levels in the experiments are sum-
marized in Table 11, which shows the average number of EVs used,
total distance traveled, and total delivery time. The Total Cost col-
umn indicates the objective function. The Fixed cost, Energy cost,
and Time cost columns are related to the first, second, and third

1200

1000

Fixed Cost
800
Cost

600

Energy Cost

400

Time Cost
200

0
20 40 60 80 100
Fixed travel speed (km/h)
Fig. 7. Cost variation trends with respect to different traveling speeds.
 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663 659

parts of the objective function. Fig. 7 shows the cost variation
trends of the fixed cost, the variable cost, and the time cost under
different traveling speeds. In general, a higher travel speed will lead
to a higher fixed cost and a higher energy cost, but a lower time
cost. Thus, the optimal trade-off of total cost is determined by their
cost rates. The experimental data showed that the speed, 20 km/h,
resulted the lowest total cost.
5.3. A dynamic heuristic solution
A heuristic solution approach was proposed for EVRPTW-ECR,
which was based on the iterative neighborhood search (INS) algo-
rithm by Xiao and Konak (2016). The basic idea of INS is to apply
partial optimization (PO) to the routing variable, i.e., the variable Xij,
by mixing using multiple local search operators. Moreover, a dy-
namic strategy is used in the algorithm, by which the scope of
partial optimization, i.e., the number of selected customers, is
adjusted dynamically according to the instant CPU time consumed.
Thereby, the proposed heuristics is named as dynamic partial
optimization with iterative neighborhood search (DPO-INS for
short). In the heuristics, four operators were used in turn to select a
part of the variable instances of Xij, and a MIP solver was used to
optimize the selected variable instances while fixing the remaining
variable instances at their current values. Three of the operators
were proposed by Xiao and Konak (2016), i.e., nearest neighbor
selection (OP-1), single range selection (OP-2), and double range
selection (OP-3). The fourth operator, named as time neighbor se-
lection (OP-4), was newly proposed to select customer nodes that
have neighbored time windows. This is because the time windows
are strong restrictions on the solution’s feasibility in EVRPTW-ECR.
Customers that are close to each other in terms of the time window
(although they may be far from each other in terms of distance) are
more likely to be served contiguously in the route. The main steps
of DPO-INS is described in Fig. 8 as follows.
In Fig. 8, the DPO-INS algorithm starts with an initial solution,
S0, constructed by dispatching each customer with a vehicle (in
Step 1), and then S0 is taken as the incumbent solution, S. The
non-improvement counter B and the current operator O are
initialized in Step 2. After that, a loop is launched in step 3 to
implement an INS, including from Step 3.1 to Step 3.15. In the INS
loop, one of the four operators was applied in turn to select a set,
W, of nodes into set U (in Steps 3.1e3.7). And then, the CPLEX
solver is applied to partial optimization on the selected nodes
while fixing the rest of other nodes (in Steps 3.8e3.10). In Steps
3.11e3.12, the number W is adjusted dynamically to ensure that
the solving time used by CPLEX is between tmin, e.g., 0.1 s, and
tmax, e.g., 10 s. That is, the number W will increase by one if the
last solution time is less than 0.1 s and will reduce by one if the
last solution time is greater than 10 s. In Steps 3.13 and 3.14, the
incumbent solution is updated and the non-improvement
counter B is increased by one if no better solution is found. The
loop is stopped when no further improvement can be made to
the incumbent solution after Bmax continuous attempts (i.e.,
B  Bmax) or the elapsed time is greater than the given time limit
Tmax (in Step 3.15). Finally, S is the best solution found and it is
the output of the algorithm. In the INS loop, the MIP solver will
consume most of the consumed CPU time (in Step 3.10), so the
algorithm’s computational complexity depends on the times of
partial optimizations implemented by the MIP solver, which is
controllable as an input parameter by the user.

Algorithm of DPO-INS :
Input parameters: Tmax, Bmax, W, tmin, tmax
Output result: S
1) Let S0 Initialization (): find a feasible incumbent solution S0
2) Let S S0, B 1, O 1
3) Loop Begin
3.1) Let U null
3.2) If O = 1 Then apply OP-1 to select a number W of nodes from set N into set U
3.3) If O = 2 Then apply OP-2 to select a number W of nodes from set N into set U
3.4) If O = 3 Then apply OP-3 to select a number W of nodes from set N into set U
3.5) If O = 4 Then apply OP-4 to select a number W of nodes from set N into set U
3.6) If O = 4 Then let O 1
3.7) Else let O O+1
3.8) Fix all Xij decision variables for i N and j N
3.9) Unfix Xij decision variables for i U and j U
3.10)Call the MIP solver to get a new solution S and save the elapsed CPU time tc.

3.11)If tc tmax Then let W W 1

3.12)Else If tc tmin Then let W W+1
3.13)If S improves upon S Then let B 0 and S S
3.14)Else let B B+1
3.15)If B Bmax or elapsed-time Tmax Then Break: jump out of loop and stop
4) Loop End

Fig. 8. Main steps of the DPO-INS algorithm.

660 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663

Table 12
Performance of the DPO-INS heuristics (Bmax ¼ 100, n ¼ 26, ε ¼ 0.1%, inner).

10 runs of the DPO-INS heuristics CPLEX

Problem ins. Best AVG Worst Dev. % AVG t. Obj. T. R. Gap%

R1-type R101 2767.78 2767.79 2767.79 0.0% 27 2767.79 1 0.0

R102 2090.46 2235.71 2382.72 0.0% 81.9 2090.46 4277 0.0
R103 1704.06 1708.79 1720.50 0.0% 74.8 1704.06 7293 34.0
R104 1670.71 1671.71 1675.56 18.4% 154.6 1410.59 7204 26.7
R105 1779.23 1779.47 1779.53 0.1% 51.1 1776.97 10 0.0
R106 1705.18 1750.99 2028.03 0.0% 89.6 1705.19 7209 33.9
R107 1380.80 1559.46 1696.33 0.0% 85.7 1380.80 7214 28.0
R108 1334.54 1441.64 1647.61 0.0% 350.3 1334.54 7313 23.7
R109 1694.37 1703.11 1739.38 0.0% 62.8 1694.37 7216 22.0
R110 1391.33 1628.11 1703.51 0.0% 82.3 1391.21 7259 25.8
R111 1393.22 1649.68 1699.59 0.0% 82.9 1393.22 7215 24.6
R112 1332.01 1472.31 1658.91 0.0% 99.8 1332.01 7206 31.2
AVG 1686.97 1780.73 1874.95 1.5% 103.6 1665.10 5785 20.8

C1-type C101 1818.67 1818.67 1818.67 0.0% 36.5 1818.67 9 0.0

C102 1786.43 1787.23 1794.40 0.0% 109.5 1786.43 372 0.0
C103 1774.06 1794.36 1808.54 0.0% 75.1 1774.06 361 0.0
C104 1771.30 1776.52 1786.83 0.0% 107.2 1771.30 2453 0.0
C105 1802.40 1802.40 1802.40 0.0% 32.8 1802.40 12 0.0
C106 1835.34 1835.34 1835.34 0.0% 39.9 1835.35 7 0.0
C107 1795.41 1799.61 1802.40 0.0% 39.2 1795.41 24 0.0
C108 1784.24 1795.85 1808.76 0.0% 46.9 1784.24 248 0.0
C109 1779.14 1779.14 1779.14 0.0% 60.6 1779.14 884 0.0
AVG 1794.11 1798.79 1804.05 0.0% 60.9 1794.11 486 0.0

RC1-type RC101 1326.59 1326.59 1326.59 0.0% 29.6 1326.59 3 0.0

RC102 1300.19 1300.22 1300.42 0.0% 50.1 1300.19 1134 0.0
RC103 1291.17 1291.18 1291.18 0.0% 54.2 1291.18 4080 0.0
RC104 1275.73 1283.75 1345.39 0.0% 53.1 1275.73 122 0.0
RC105 1670.21 1670.23 1670.34 20.2% 61.3 1389.97 5028 0.0
RC106 1302.28 1302.43 1303.81 0.0% 51.7 1302.28 70 0.0
RC107 1259.51 1259.53 1259.70 0.0% 50.1 1259.51 3972 0.0
RC108 1257.11 1257.33 1258.26 0.0% 70.8 1257.11 971 0.0
AVG 1335.35 1336.41 1344.46 2.5% 52.6 1300.32 1923 0.0

Note: Bold face indicates the best values found. In the header, Bmax ¼ 100 indicates the stop condition, n ¼ 26 indicates total number of nodes, ε ¼ 0.1% and inner indicate the
maximum allowed error ratio in the inner-approximation for the time-speed relation, respectively.

The DPO-INS algorithm was repeatedly run for 10 times to the time window constraint is more restrictive. For the C-type and
obtain 10 solutions for each of the test instances. The experimental RC-type instances, the distance differences among clustered cus-
results were shown in Table 12 and they were also compared with tomers are even more trivial in comparison to the time window
the solutions obtained by CPLEX with inner approximation shown differences, that is why the Op-1 operator performed even worse
in Table 6. It can be observed that DPO-INS required much less CPU on the C-type than the RC-type or R-type. In Fig. 1A and Table 1A of
time to obtain solutions that are only slightly worse than the so- the Appendix section, a detailed algorithm progress of solving the
lutions by CPLEX. There are 25 (out of 29) instances found by DPO- C101 instance of C1-type by the DPO-INS algorithm is provided.
INS that have met the best-known solutions. The average CPU time Table 13 compares the performance of DPO-INS and CPLEX for
was 127 s for DPO-INS and 3042 s for CPLEX. Note that some so- the 29 Solomon’s instances with full customer sizes, i.e., 100 cus-
lutions by the heuristics appear to be slightly better than the tomers. The parameter settings were Bmax ¼ 400, n ¼ 101, and
optimal solutions by CPLEX, e.g., solutions 2767.78 and 2767.79 for
the R101 instance, but they are the same one. This is because of two
reasons: (1) The CPLEX solver itself has a numerical accuracy Average mes of
setting for integer programming, and (2) the ε-linearization of the Improvements
time-speed relation may lead to an approximate error. Both of these
values should be considered as BEST. That is, the values 2767.78 and 10.0
2767.79 in first row of Table 12 are all the best value for R101
8.0
instance.
Fig. 9 shows the average times of improvements by using 6.0
different operators. The OP1 operator (i.e., nearest neighbor selec-
tion), which obtained the best performance according to Xiao and 4.0
Konak (2016), however showed the worst performance on the 2.0
EVRPTW-ECR problem. The new time neighbor selection operator R-type
(i.e., the OP4) obtained moderate performance compared with the 0.0 C-type
other two operators. The reason for why the OP-1 operator made a OP-4 RC-type
OP-3
bad performance is largely because the Solomon’s VRPTW in- OP-2
OP-1
stances have much tighter time windows than that of PRP instances
of Bektas and Laporte (2011), such that optimizing the connections
between nearby neighbors may not work out good result because Fig. 9. Average times of improvements by different operators.
 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663 661

Table 13
Performance of the DPO-INS heuristics (Bmax ¼ 400, n ¼ 101, ε ¼ 0.1%, inner).

Problem ins. 10 runs of the DPO-INS heuristics CPLEX

Best AVG Worst Dev. % AVG t. Obj. T. R. Gap %

R1-type R101 6909.85 7051.50 7585.80 8.9 348 6343.34 1178 0.0
R102 6148.54 6362.19 6508.46 0.7 837 6191.18 7201 42.0
R103 5101.52 5494.90 5748.37 11.8 1119 5783.76 7202 41.7
R104 3999.54 4457.06 4927.66 24.8 915 5318.18 7201 34.8
R105 5770.30 5789.04 5828.32 4.7 611 5511.49 7201 33.3
R106 5109.21 5419.08 5791.12 6.4 1010 5460.81 7201 37.5
R107 4635.39 4823.78 5020.76 13.7 1054 5370.34 7201 38.6
R108 3953.52 4290.76 4662.96 15.4 964 4672.18 7203 30.8
R109 4978.87 5205.21 5693.82 21.8 742 6370.90 7201 47.6
R110 4947.48 5107.91 5307.40 22.6 751 6394.50 7204 49.2
R111 4348.53 4787.10 5283.80 22.8 844 5633.15 7202 41.9
R112 4309.16 4621.28 4931.67 24.0 816 5666.70 7207 43.1
AVG 5017.66 5284.15 5607.51 13.1 834 5773.84 6276 33.9

C1-type C101 6492.30 6636.32 6910.95 0.0 359 6492.31 61 0.0

C102 6492.30 7097.39 7475.34 0.0 612 6492.31 7202 1.4
C103 6525.44 6950.55 7306.77 0.5 815 6492.31 7203 4.9
C104 6738.25 6892.15 7059.38 3.8 978 6492.31 7203 5.4
C105 6492.30 6916.70 7788.39 0.0 1124 6492.31 169 0.0
C106 6492.30 6795.14 7299.86 0.0 576 6492.31 7201 3.8
C107 6492.30 6738.77 7019.31 0.0 495 6492.31 7200 3.7
C108 6492.30 6730.25 6987.13 0.0 633 6492.31 7202 4.6
C109 6513.73 6807.27 7443.06 0.3 545 6492.31 7202 5.3
AVG 6525.69 6840.50 7254.47 0.5 682 6492.31 5627 3.2

RC1-type RC101 5992.82 6249.75 6681.27 6.9 748 6434.91 7201 34.9
RC102 5552.55 5637.20 5924.72 7.4 852 5993.40 7202 35.1
RC103 4819.79 5154.47 5471.57 17.5 904 5843.81 7202 35.2
RC104 4425.00 4738.18 4830.17 15.3 840 5224.64 7210 28.2
RC105 5901.01 5967.14 6261.86 12.0 753 6704.98 7201 41.1
RC106 5543.10 5658.76 5925.73 11.3 596 6248.91 7202 38.1
RC107 5119.91 5318.45 5522.18 44.1 826 9157.25 7202 58.9
RC108 4461.91 4785.69 5099.43 37.6 980 7153.60 7203 47.8
AVG 5227.01 5438.71 5714.62 19.0 812 6595.19 7203 39.9

Note: Bold face indicates the best values found.

ε ¼ 0.1%, and inner approximation was employed. It can be observed
that the obtained solutions by the DPO-INS heuristics are better than
those by CPLEX, with average improvements of 13.1% and 19.0%
for the R1 and RC problem types, respectively. For the C1 problem
type, the solutions obtained by DPO-INS were almost the same as the
near-optimal solutions found by CPLEX, which were solved with
small R. Gap values. The main aim of this experiment was to show
that the proposed MILP model could be solved by heuristic algo-
rithms for large problems within controllable CPU time, so the four
operators were used with an equal chance in the DPO-INS heuristics.
However, using a competitive strategy among the operators is ex-
pected to improve the solution efficiency substantially (Dellaert and
Jeunet, 2000; Xiao and Konak, 2016).
6. Conclusion
This study investigated the EVRPTW by considering a new
feature of EVs, i.e., the speed-varying travel range (SVR). Thus, the
maximum traveling range of EVs was not considered as a constant
limit, as found in most existing EVRP models, but instead it was
dynamically determined by ECRs (energy/electricity consumption
for traveling per unit distance) of EVs throughout the tours. An
energy consumption optimization model was developed for the
EVRPTW, where the ECR of an EV was taken as a nonlinear function
of the continuous speed with the linear effect of the load (referred
to as EVRPTW-ECR). Comparative experiments based on real situ-
ation simulations showed that the dynamic range settings with
flexible speed achieved great cost reductions, with averages
of 17.9%, 19.2%, 24.8%, 37.6%, and 49.7% compared with the
solutions produced when considering a constant range and fixed
traveling speeds of 20 km/h, 40 km/h, 60 km/h, 80 km/h, and
100 km/h, respectively. Two piecewise linearization methods were
also proposed, comprising the inner and outer approximations for
the nonlinear timeespeed relationship, with a controllable range of
approximation errors. Based on the theoretical analysis and
experimental comparisons, two generalized remarks can be
concluded: (1) SVR is an important feature of EVs, having a sig-
nificant impact on efficient utilization of electricity energy and cost
reduction, and (2) the proposed MILP model and heuristic approach
for EVRPTW-ECR are able to solve optimal solutions for problem
instances up to 25 customers and relatively good solutions for
problem instances up to 100 customers. Future studies may
consider more practical factors related to the ECR function, such as
the air condition status and environmental temperature, as well as
developing more efficient solution approaches for large-sized
EVRPTW-ECR problems.
Acknowledgments
This study was partly supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 71871003, 71571004, and
71672006.
Appendix
662 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663

Table 1A
A detailed algorithm steps of solving the C101 instance of C1-type by the DPO-INS algorithm.

SN B Op. W Obj. SN B Op. W Obj. SN B Op. W Obj.

1 0 2 8 35869.41 54 0 3 8 15491.20 107 0 3 8 9706.30

2 2 1 8 35199.96 55 2 2 9 15419.38 108 2 2 10 9673.49
3 0 2 8 34561.52 56 0 3 8 15402.40 109 6 1 8 9663.57
4 2 1 8 33601.97 57 2 2 9 15385.26 110 3 1 8 9658.24
5 0 2 8 32730.14 58 0 3 8 15360.03 111 0 2 10 9648.04
6 0 3 10 31964.97 59 1 1 8 14765.10 112 0 3 8 9640.01
7 0 1 8 31003.50 60 1 3 8 14746.21 113 3 3 8 9626.75
8 0 2 8 30671.29 61 1 1 8 14433.92 114 2 2 10 9593.61
9 0 3 10 30587.82 62 0 2 9 14129.05 115 4 3 8 9539.64
10 1 1 8 29678.24 63 2 1 8 14101.38 116 1 2 10 9246.42
11 0 2 8 29111.65 64 0 2 9 13807.54 117 2 1 8 9230.74
12 0 3 10 29086.71 65 0 3 8 13771.48 118 5 3 8 9227.39
13 0 1 8 28409.67 66 3 3 8 13768.28 119 10 2 10 8889.70
14 0 2 8 27464.71 67 1 1 8 13729.95 120 0 3 8 8884.48
15 0 3 10 26484.32 68 0 2 9 13624.27 121 6 2 10 8857.67
16 0 1 8 26271.34 69 0 3 8 13350.53 122 24 3 8 8835.71
17 0 2 8 25641.22 70 1 1 8 13104.63 123 23 3 8 8832.29
18 0 3 10 25532.90 71 0 2 9 13047.50 124 29 1 8 8830.09
19 0 1 8 24923.79 72 0 3 8 13043.09 125 8 2 11 8529.14
20 0 2 8 24037.97 73 2 2 9 12790.49 126 2 1 8 8479.70
21 0 3 10 23939.99 74 0 3 8 12780.21 127 5 3 8 8478.63
22 0 1 8 23712.93 75 1 1 8 12731.01 128 22 2 11 8471.74
23 0 2 8 23377.12 76 4 2 9 12098.46 129 8 3 8 8471.65
24 0 3 10 23338.74 77 0 3 8 12054.95 130 34 2 11 8428.51
25 1 1 8 22973.29 78 3 3 8 12007.21 131 16 3 9 8427.89
26 1 3 10 22933.57 79 2 2 9 11931.66 132 11 3 9 8403.82
27 1 1 8 22861.84 80 0 3 8 11920.24 133 6 2 11 8386.40
28 0 2 8 22170.41 81 1 1 8 11826.43 134 20 3 9 8354.36
29 0 3 9 22147.91 82 0 2 9 11516.27 135 27 3 9 8353.74
30 0 1 8 21818.51 83 2 1 8 11493.20 136 3 3 9 8319.43
31 0 2 8 21546.94 84 1 3 8 11461.65 137 2 2 11 8315.44
32 2 1 8 21246.58 85 1 1 8 11452.29 138 6 1 10 7965.33
33 0 2 8 21228.18 86 1 3 8 11442.55 139 7 1 10 7958.15
34 0 3 9 20909.36 87 3 3 8 11429.61 140 28 2 11 7943.86
35 1 1 8 20214.40 88 1 1 8 11413.94 141 7 2 11 7938.22
36 0 2 8 20214.01 89 0 2 9 11379.60 142 0 3 9 7923.10
37 0 3 9 19766.96 90 0 3 8 11304.67 143 5 1 10 7923.06
38 1 1 8 19455.35 91 2 2 9 10958.82 144 13 3 9 7888.23
39 0 2 8 18509.32 92 2 1 8 10627.95 145 45 1 10 7849.44
40 0 3 9 18137.86 93 3 1 8 10626.64 146 64 2 11 7824.42
41 1 1 8 17728.63 94 8 2 9 10324.24 147 8 3 9 7822.79
42 0 2 9 17364.10 95 0 3 8 10294.17 148 9 1 10 7814.14
43 0 3 9 17321.60 96 6 2 9 10290.00 149 7 1 10 7787.09
44 1 1 8 17159.58 97 0 3 8 10279.31 150 100 2 11 7727.64
45 0 2 9 16858.70 98 2 2 9 10234.96 151 11 2 11 7377.00
46 0 3 8 16835.10 99 0 3 8 10194.06 152 12 3 9 7335.65
47 2 2 9 16487.72 100 5 1 8 10123.80 153 30 2 11 7315.48
48 0 3 8 16450.49 101 1 3 8 10081.66 154 34 1 10 6901.06
49 1 1 8 16137.45 102 2 2 9 10052.25 155 45 3 9 6898.53
50 0 2 9 15832.16 103 4 3 8 10035.98 156 55 3 9 6885.57
51 0 3 8 15818.76 104 5 1 8 10031.66 157 114 2 12 6825.01
52 1 1 8 15614.85 105 21 3 8 10031.10 158 15 2 12 6492.31
53 0 2 9 15569.71 106 30 2 10 9712.49

Note: SNdSequence number of improvement; BdNumber of continuous attempts without improvement; WdNumber of nodes selected to be unfixed; Obj.dobjective
function value.
 Y. Xiao et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 225 (2019) 647e663
35000
30000
25000
Objective function
20000
15000
10000
5000
0 Keskin, M., Çatay, B., 2016. Partial recharge strategies for the electric vehicle routing
0 100 200 300 400
Solution time (s)
Fig. 1A. The converging progress of solving the C101 instance of C1-type by the DPO-
INS algorithm.
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