Time-dependent stochastic vehicle routing problem with random requests: Application to online police patrol management in Brussels

The Static and Stochastic Vehicle Routing Problem with Random Requests (SS-VRP-R) describes realistic operational contexts in which a fleet of vehicles has to serve customer requests appearing dynamically. Based on probabilistic knowledge about the appearance requests, SS-VRP-R seeks priori sequences vehicle relocations, optimizing expected responsiveness requests. In this paper, an existing computational framework, based recourse strategies, is adapted meet objectives SS-VRP-R. resulting models are applied real case study management police units Brussels. context, average response time minimized. To cope reality urban time-dependent variant also studied (TD-SS-VRP-R) travel between two locations function that depends departure at first location. Experiments confirm contribution adaptability strategies real-life, complex context. Provided adequate solution method, simulation-based results show high quality solutions designed, even when compared those designed by field experts. Finally, experiments provide evidence there no potential gain considering time-dependency such