The vehicle routing and scheduling problem with cross-docking for perishable products under uncertainty: Two robust bi-objective models

This paper presents a bi-objective MILP model for the vehicle routing and scheduling problem with cross-docking for perishable products. It is demonstrated that considering merely one objective sacrifices the other one and that the L1 metric method makes a suitable trade-off. Two robust models are developed when the travel time of the outbound vehicles and the freshness-life of the products are uncertain. The results show that the effect of the appearing uncertainty in the travel time on the deterioration of the objectives is higher than the effect of the freshness-life of the products, and using the proposed model, the freshness of the delivered products increases by 74.14% on average without increasing the distribution cost, which can decrease the waste.