A Model for the Traveling Salesman Problem Including the EC Regulations on Driving Hours

Summary

Since April 2007 the new EC Regulation No 561/2006 concerning driving hours in road transport is effective. This regulation restricts the length of time periods for driving and requires minimum breaks and rest periods for drivers [2]. An analysis of the EC Regulation with respect to vehicle routing can be found in [3]. In this paper the restrictions on driving times and the need for breaks are formalized and integrated in an optimization model of the TSPTW. The solution space of the extended traveling salesman problem with time windows and EUconstraints (TSPTW-EU) contains all Hamiltonian circuits which full the given time windows and restrictions of the Regulation relevant for a time period up to one week. The presented approach for extending the TSPTW to the TSPTW-EU is also applicable for the extension of the VRPTW and PDPTW, thus offering a possibility to include the EC Regulations in vehicle routing and scheduling.