Multi-Objective Vehicle Routing Problem in Hazardous Material Transportation

A multi-objective optimization model for Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) in hazardous material transportation is proposed to minimize road risk, persons affected along the way, and total cost. To deal with the problem efficiently, a multi-objective genetic algorithm is developed in this paper. The result of the numerical example shows that algorithm can avoid the limitation of traditional multi-objective optimization methods and solve multi-objective VRP in hazardous material routing problem effectively. It provides a safety management basis for the government and companies which operate hazardous material. Hazardous material with the characters of blast ability radioactivity and hyper toxicity seriously threaten human safety, production activities and natural environment. Better routing can result in reducing the risk of hazardous material transportation to a minimum. Moreover, the vehicle type will be different according to the different quantity demand. Consequentially, vehicle routing problem (VRP) of hazardous material transportation is designed to make suitable vehicle scheduling decision. There have been much research on VPR of traditional logistics system (Li and Guo 2001, Berger and Barkaoui 2004). In respect to transportation of hazardous material, Kara et al. (2004) proposed the design of minimum risk path with bi-level programming model for the highway network of the hazardous material transportation. Erkut et al. (2007) made an improvement, and established the bi-objective model, then solved the model with improved algorithm development network flow structure. Shi et al. (2006) established multi-objective system including route length, time, cost, risk of the route and the damage, and then surveyed a programming to decide the hazardous material transportation network. Recently, the majority of research of hazardous material transportation only provided the specific selection criteria, however, the algorithms for solving multi-object problem needed to be improved. This paper will focus on these two problems. Vehicle routing problem in hazardous material transportation is a multiple decision problem between the regulation department and operator of hazardous material. Considering the existing road infrastructure and safety management lever, routing optimization which is based on minimizing risk which is an important measure to reduce traffic accident and by reducing the number of affected people an important choice to defend the dangerous, and better routing optimization based on minimum cost is necessary to improve the economy benefits. This paper, considers three aims: minimizing the risk of routing, minimizing the number of affected people, and minimizing the cost, then propose a method to optimize the routing.