Cumulative VRP: A Simplified Model of Green Vehicle Routing

There has been a recent resurge of interest in vehicle routing problems, especially in the context of green vehicle routing. One popular and simplified model is that of the cumulative vehicle routing problem. In this chapter, we examine the motivation, the definition, and the mixed integer linear program for the cumulative VRP. We review some of the recent results on approximation algorithms for the cumulative VRP. A column generation-based procedure for solving the cumulative VRP is also described. We also review approximation algorithms for a stochastic version of the cumulative VRP.