DSS of vehicle refueling: A new enhanced approach with fuel weight considerations

a r t i c l e i n f o The fixed-route vehicle-refueling problem (FRVRP) is a mathematical problem widely used in the U.S. trucking industry. The FRVRP seeks the best refueling policy (sequence of fuel stations to use, along with the fueling quantity at each station) for a given (fixed) origin–destination route that minimizes a vehicle's refueling cost. While effective, the current FRVRP methods need not produce optimal solutions, as they ignore the negative impacts that carrying excessive amounts of fuel in the tank can have on fuel consumption rates. This paper proposes a new approach to the FRVRP that takes into account the benefit of retaining some empty space in the fuel tank at all times, which enhances fuel economy. We show by conducting computational testing that our approach attains not only cheaper refueling costs, but also lower fuel burns, than other approaches. Our approach is simple, yet its implementation may save millions of gallons of diesel fuel and billions of dollars of fuel cost for the U.S. trucking industry per year. Given the dramatic increase of fuel prices observed during the last few years, the efficient management of fuel cost has become a critical issue in today's motor-carrier (trucking) industry. The importance of this issue cannot be overstated as fuel prices affect not only the operating cost of carriers but also the logistics cost of shippers. One method of managing the motor-carrier fuel cost, which is increasingly adopted by U.S. truckload (TL) carriers, is the use of software products called fuel optimizers. Fuel optimizers are decision support systems designed to solve the fixed-route vehicle-refueling problem (FRVRP), a mathematical problem that seeks the best refueling policy (sequence of fuel stations to use, along with the fueling quantity at each station) for a given (fixed) origin–destination route that minimizes a vehicle's refueling cost. These products typically work in conjunction with the fuel-price databases which are updated daily, so that carriers can always create refueling policies based on the latest price data. To date, several FRVRP solution techniques have been developed. These include the heuristics developed by software (fuel optimizer) vendors, as well as the exact methods proposed by academicians. It is worth noting that virtually all of these methods produce solutions that buy as many gallons at cheap fuel stations (truck stops) as possible and buy fewer (or no) gallons at expensive truck stops (i.e., top off at …