Journal of Systems Engineering and Electronics ›› 2025, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (6): 1501-1531.doi: 10.23919/JSEE.2025.000139

• SYSTEMS ENGINEERING • Previous Articles    

Dynamic vehicle routing for a dual-channel distribution center with stochastic demands and shared resources

Mei XU1(), Feng YANG1,*(), Ting CHEN2()   

  1. 1 School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
    2 School of Foreign Language, Hefei Normal University, Hefei 230601, China
  • Received:2025-03-05 Online:2025-12-18 Published:2026-01-07
  • Contact: Feng YANG E-mail:xmadyy@mail.ustc.edu.cn;fengyang@ustc.edu.cn;tinachen@mail.ustc.edu.cn
  • About author:
    XU Mei was born in 1994. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in information management and information systems and in management science and engineering from Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2016 and 2019, respectively. Currently, she is pursuing her Ph.D. degree in management science and engineering at the University of Science and Technology of China. Her research interests include supply chain management, logistics management, and path optimization. E-mail: xmadyy@mail.ustc.edu.cn

    YANG Feng was born in 1977. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in finance by the University of Science and Technology of China in 2000 and 2006, respectively. He is a professor in the School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China. His research interests include multi-objective optimization and multi-criteria decision modeling. E-mail: fengyang@ustc.edu.cn

    CHEN Ting was born in 1983. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in tourism management from Anhui Universit in 2005 and 2008, respectively. She received her Ph.D. degree in business administration from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2019. She is a professor at Hefei Normal University. Her research interests include platform supply chain and operations management. E-mail: tinachen@mail.ustc.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71991464/71991460;72301261;72001066) and 2024 Anhui Province High-end Talent Introduction and Cultivation Project.

Abstract:

This paper addresses a dynamic vehicle routing problem with stochastic requests in a dual-channel distribution center that utilizes shared vehicle resources to serve two types of customers: offline corporate clients (CCs) with fixed and stochastic batch demands, and online individual customers (ICs) with single-unit demands. To manage stochastic batch demands from CCs, this paper proposes three recourse policies under a differentiated resource-sharing scheme: the waiting-tour-based (WTB) policy, the advance-tour-based (ATB) policy, and the advance-customer-based (ACB) policy. These policies differ in their response priorities to random requests and the scope of route reoptimization. The problem is formulated as a two-stage stochastic recourse programming model, where the first stage establishes routes for fixed demands. In the second stage, we construct three stochastic recourse programming models corresponding to the proposed recourse policies. To solve these models, this paper develop rolling horizon algorithms integrated with mathematical programming models or metaheuristic algorithms. Extensive numerical experiments validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms and policies. The results indicate that both the ATB and ACB policies lead to cost savings compared to the WTB policy, especially when stochastic demands are urgent and delivery resources are quite limited. Specifically, when the number of ICs is small, the expected total cost savings can exceed 12%, and in some scenarios, savings of over 20% can be achieved. When the number of ICs is large, some scenarios can achieve cost savings exceeding 7%. Furthermore, the ACB policy yields lower costs, fewer worsened ICs, fewer trips, and less vehicle time than the ATB policy.

Key words: dynamic vehicle routing, stochastic request, dual-channel distribution, stochastic recourse programming, rolling horizon algorithm