Solving a Dynamic and Stochastic Vehicle Routing Problem with a Sample Scenario Hedging Heuristic

The statement of the standard vehicle routing problem cannot always capture all aspects of real-world applications. As a result, extensions or modifications to the model are warranted. Here we consider the case when customers can call in orders during the daily operations; i.e., both customer locations and demands may be unknown in advance. This is modeled as a combined dynamic and stochastic programming problem, and a heuristic solution method is developed where sample scenarios are generated, solved heuristically, and combined iteratively to form a solution to the overall problem.