New Models and Solutions to Vehicle Routing with Cardinality and Distance Constraints

Many emerging transportation and logistics operations are constrained by both the maximum distance a vehicle can travel and the number of customers it can serve before requiring replenishment, recharging, or maintenance. These operational realities motivate the need for new routing optimization models that explicitly integrate distance and cardinality constraints. This project proposes the first comprehensive study of a novel Black-and-White Vehicle Routing Problem (BWVRP), where customer nodes and replenishment nodes are jointly routed across a fleet of vehicles, with replenishment nodes allowed to be visited multiple times. The project will develop new mixed-integer linear programming models and exact branch-and-cut methods to obtain optimal solutions for small and medium-sized instances. To address large-scale instances, efficient heuristic and metaheuristic algorithms will be designed and implemented. In addition to methodological advances, the project will develop a data-driven optimization decision-support tool integrating models, algorithms, and user-friendly interface.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $283,793.14
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3552348307

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Mid-America Transportation Center

  University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  2200 Vine Street, PO Box 830851
  Lincoln, NE  United States  68583-0851
• Project Managers:

  Bruner, Britain

• Performing Organizations:

  University of Missouri, St. Louis

  1 University Boulevard
  St. Louis, MO  United States  63121-4400
• Principal Investigators:

  Li, Haitao

• Start Date: 20260601
• Expected Completion Date: 20270531
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Decision support systems; Distance; Mixed integer programming; Optimization; Routing; Sustainable transportation; Vehicle range
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01989398
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Mid-America Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: 69A3552348307
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: May 16 2026 11:45AM