Optimizing Pickup Vehicle Routing with Dynamic Customer Requests: A Heuristic Approach

The rapid growth of e-commerce has amplified the demand for efficient last-mile delivery services, where optimizing Time Window Assignment plays a critical role in improving service quality. In this paper, we address the Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Window Assignment, managing both static and dynamic customer requests. We propose a dynamic strategy for routing and assigning time windows to customers. Initially offering broader time windows for static requests and refining them as dynamic orders appear. To achieve real-time route adjustments, we develop a heuristic approach using insertion algorithms combined with simulated annealing. Experimental results, based on Lackner’s extension of the Solomon benchmark, reveal that larger time windows can sometimes enhance service levels but show inconsistencies across varying degrees of dynamism. These findings highlight the need for further exploration of the factors affecting service quality in dynamic environments.