The Vehicle Routine Problem : Applications and Research Perspectives

This is an expository article about the Vehicle Routing Problem, which is an important problem in the area of supplychain management. The purpose of this article is to draw the attention of potential researchers towards this problem.Even though the problem is heavily researched, there is plenty of scope for more research on this problem because manynew versions of the problem keep emerging. After introducing the problem, the article provides a mathematicalformulation of the problem, an illustrative example, and a brief literature survey. Then a number of different versions ofthe problem which are of practical interest have been discussed. Finally, the article ends with a short discussion on thescope of future research on this problem.