Vehicle Routing

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Overview

Vehicle routing studies how fleets can serve customers, move goods, or complete tasks efficiently while respecting constraints such as vehicle capacity, time windows, and battery range. Problems range from static delivery tours to dynamic ride-sharing, electric-vehicle charging, and coordinated truck-drone or warehouse-robot operations. Common approaches include exact optimization with branch-and-price, heuristics such as hybrid genetic search and adaptive large-neighborhood search, and neural or reinforcement-learning solvers, often combined with local search or mathematical optimization. A central challenge is balancing solution quality and feasibility with runtime and generalization to larger, changing, or unfamiliar settings, where learned methods do not always outperform strong heuristics.

Latest papers

CardsList

139 papers18 papers in the last four weeks, up 29% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. Rethinking Positional Encoding for Neural Vehicle Routing

    May 12, 2026Chuanbo Hua, Federico Berto, Andre Hottung +8Vehicle RoutingPositional Encoding

    KAIST · Radical Numerics · Bielefeld University +3

  2. Rethinking Constraint Awareness for Efficient State Embedding of Neural Routing Solver

    May 11, 2026Canhong Yu, Changliang Zhou, Rongsheng Chen +2Neural Network OptimizationCombinatorial Optimization

    College of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China · School of Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China · Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Fully Actuated System Control Theory and Technology, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China +1

  3. Neural Cluster First, Route Second: Capacitated Vehicle Routing via Differentiable Optimal Transport

    May 10, 2026Samuel J. K. Chin, Maximilian SchifferVehicle RoutingNeural Combinatorial Optimization

    MIT · TUM

  4. Value-Decomposed Reinforcement Learning Framework for Taxiway Routing with Hierarchical Conflict-Aware Observations

    May 9, 2026Shizhong Zhou, Haifeng Liu, Zheng Zhang +3Collision AvoidanceVehicle Routing

    National Key Laboratory of Fundamental Science on Synthetic Vision, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610000, China · College of Computer Science, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610000, China

  5. LINC: Decoupling Local Consequence Scoring from Hidden Matching in Constructive Neural Routing

    May 7, 2026Shaofeng Qin, Li WangVehicle RoutingNeural Combinatorial Optimization

    Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications

  6. Two-Stage Learned Decomposition for Scalable Routing on Multigraphs

    May 6, 2026Filip Rydin, Morteza Haghir Chehreghani, Balázs KulcsárVehicle RoutingNeural Combinatorial Optimization

    Chalmers University of Technology · University of Gothenburg

  7. Automated Large-scale CVRP Solver Design via LLM-assisted Flexible MCTS

    May 5, 2026Tong Guo, Caishun Chen, Yew Soon OngAutomated Algorithm DiscoveryLarge Language Model-Guided Optimization

    College of Computing and Data Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

  8. Middle-mile logistics through the lens of goal-conditioned reinforcement learning

    May 4, 2026Onno Eberhard, Thibaut Cuvelier, Michal Valko +1Vehicle RoutingGoal-Conditioned RL

    Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen, Germany · University of Tübingen · Google Research +1

  9. Hybrid Quantum Reinforcement Learning with QAOA for Improved Vehicle Routing Optimization

    May 2, 2026T. Satyanarayana Murthy, B. Swathi Sowmya, Santhosh Voruganti +3Quantum Machine LearningCombinatorial Optimization

    Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology Hyderabad, India

  10. Instance-Aware Parameter Configuration in Bilevel Late Acceptance Hill Climbing for the Electric Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem

    May 1, 2026Yinghao Qin, Xinwei Wang, Mosab Bazargani +1Metaheuristic OptimizationVehicle Routing

    Centre for Intelligent Transport Queen Mary, University of London London, UK · School of Computer Science and Engineering Bangor University Bangor, UK

  11. Agentic AI for Trip Planning Optimization Application

    Apr 30, 2026Tiejin Chen, Ahmadreza Moradipari, Kyungtae Han +2Multi-Agent OrchestrationIntelligent Transportation Systems

    Toyota Motor North America R&D, InfoTech Labs, USA. · Arizona State University

  12. FiLMMeD: Feature-wise Linear Modulation for Cross-Problem Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing

    Apr 30, 2026Arthur Corrêa, Paulo Nascimento, Samuel MonizMulti-Task LearningVehicle Routing

    University of Coimbra, CEMMPRE, ARISE, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Coimbra, 3030-788, Portugal

  13. Learning to Route Electric Trucks Under Operational Uncertainty

    Apr 29, 2026Stavros Orfanoudakis, Ziyan Li, Ruixiao Yang +4Sequential Decision MakingElectric Vehicle Charging

    Delft University of Technology, Intelligent Electrical Power Grids, Delft, The Netherlands · Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center of Transportation and Logistics, Cambridge, MA, United States of America · Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Cambridge, MA, United States of America

  14. NCO4CVRP: Neural Combinatorial Optimization for the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem

    Apr 17, 2026Mahir Labib Dihan, Md. Ashrafur Rahman Khan, Wasif Jalal +2Inference-Time SearchMetaheuristic Optimization

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology

  15. Driving Assistance System for Ambulances to Minimise the Vibrations in Patient Cabin

    Apr 17, 2026Abdulaziz Aldegheishem, Nabil Alrajeh, Lorena Parra +2Vehicle Routing

  16. Robust Energy-Aware Routing for Air-Ground Cooperative Multi-UAV Delivery in Wind-Uncertain Environments

    Apr 15, 2026Tianshun Li, Hongliang Lu, Yanggang Sheng +3Vehicle RoutingMotion Planning

    The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), China · The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, HongKong · the Intelligent Transportation Thrust and Robotics and Autonomous Systems Thrust, Systems Hub, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), China +1

  17. Bilevel Late Acceptance Hill Climbing for the Electric Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem

    Apr 14, 2026Yinghao Qin, Mosab Bazargani, Edmund K. Burke +3Vehicle RoutingBilevel Optimization

    Centre for Intelligent Transport, QMUL, London, U.K. · School of Computer Science and Engineering, Bangor University, Bangor, U.K. · Department of Computer Science, Evolutionary Computation Group, CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico City, Mexico. +2

  18. Enhancing Cross-Problem Vehicle Routing via Federated Learning

    Apr 12, 2026Xiangchi Meng, Jianan Zhou, Jie Gao +4Vehicle RoutingNeural Combinatorial Optimization

    Dalian University of Technology · Nanyang Technological University · Delft University of Technology +1

  19. Robust Multi-Objective Optimization for Bicycle Rebalancing in Shared Mobility Systems

    Apr 9, 2026Diego Daniel Pedroza-Perez, Gabriel Luque, Sergio Nesmachnow +1Multi-Objective OptimizationRobust Optimization

    ITIS Software, University of Malaga, Spain · Universidad de la República, Uruguay

  20. PyVRP+^+: LLM-Driven Metacognitive Heuristic Evolution for Hybrid Genetic Search in Vehicle Routing Problems

    Apr 9, 2026Manuj Malik, Jianan Zhou, Shashank Reddy Chirra +1Automated Heuristic DesignLarge Language Model-Guided Optimization

    Singapore Management University Singapore, Singapore · Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Singapore · University of Oxford Oxford, England

  21. Vehicle-as-Prompt: A Unified Deep Reinforcement Learning Framework for Heterogeneous Fleet Vehicle Routing Problem

    Apr 6, 2026Shihong Huang, Shengjie Wang, Lei Gao +4Vehicle RoutingRL for Combinatorial Optimization

    Polytechnic Institute, Zhejiang University, 310015, Hangzhou, China · S.F. Technology Co., Ltd., 518054, Shenzhen, China · School of Management, Zhejiang University, 310058, Hangzhou, China

  22. Regime-Calibrated Fleet Repositioning with a Spatial Queue-Regret Decomposition

    Apr 4, 2026Indar Kumar, Akanksha TiwariQueueing TheoryVehicle Routing

  23. Multi-Agent Training-free Urban Food Delivery System using Resilient UMST Network

    Mar 24, 2026Md Nahid Hasan, Vishwam Tiwari, Aditya Challa +2Vehicle RoutingIntelligent Transportation Systems

    Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA · Department of Computer Science & Information Systems, BITS Pilani K. K. Birla Goa Campus, and APPCAIR, BITS Goa, India

  24. Energy-Aware Collaborative Exploration for a UAV-UGV Team

    Mar 23, 2026Cahit Ikbal Er, Saikiran Juttu, Yasin YaziciogluMulti-Robot ExplorationMulti-Robot Coordination

    Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University, Boston, MA.

  25. Optimal Solutions for the Moving Target Vehicle Routing Problem with Obstacles via Lazy Branch-and-Price

    Mar 23, 2026Anoop Bhat, Geordan Gutow, David Neiman +4Vehicle RoutingMotion Planning

    Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213. · Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI 49931 · Robotics and AI Institute, Cambridge, MA 02142. +2

  26. Adversarial Reinforcement Learning for Detecting False Data Injection Attacks in Vehicular Routing

    Mar 12, 2026Taha Eghtesad, Yevgeniy Vorobeychik, Aron LaszkaFalse Data Injection AttacksVehicle Routing

    Informatics and Intelligent Systems Pennsylvania State University University Park, USA · Computer Science & Engineering Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, USA

  27. Cluster-Aware Attention-Based Deep Reinforcement Learning for Pickup and Delivery Problems

    Mar 9, 2026Wentao Wang, Lifeng Han, Guangyu ZouVehicle RoutingRL for Combinatorial Optimization

    Leicester International Institute, Dalian University of Technology, Panjin, 124221, Liaoning, China. · Department of Electronic and Information Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Panjin, 124221, Liaoning, China.

  28. Constraints Matrix Diffusion based Generative Neural Solver for Vehicle Routing Problems

    Mar 8, 2026Zhenwei Wang, Tiehua Zhang, Ning Xue +3Vehicle RoutingNeural Combinatorial Optimization

    School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo, 315100, China · School of Computer Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China · Computational Optimisation and Learning Lab, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, NG8 1BB Nottingham, U.K. +1

  29. Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem with Prompt Confirmation of Advance Requests

    Mar 8, 2026Amutheezan Sivagnanam, Ayan Mukhopadhyay, Samitha Samaranayake +2Vehicle RoutingRL for Combinatorial Optimization

    Department of Informatics and Intelligent Systems, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania · Department of Computer Science, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia · School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York +1

  30. SynthCharge: An Electric Vehicle Routing Instance Generator with Feasibility Screening to Enable Learning-Based Optimization and Benchmarking

    Mar 3, 2026Mertcan Daysalilar, Fuat Uyguroglu, Gabriel Nicolosi +1Synthetic Benchmark GenerationVehicle Routing

    Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA · Faculty of Engineering, Cyprus International University 99258 Nicosia, North Cyprus, via Mersin 10, Turkey · Engineering Management and Systems Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO, USA