Vehicle routing with backup provisioning using wireless sensor infrastructure

Intelligent transportation systems are currently under strong research and are expected to promote the emergence of new solutions for urban transportation networks. Here we introduce a variant of the open vehicle routing problem, called vehicle routing with backup provisioning, where the possibility of reacting to overloading/overcrowding of vehicles in certain stops is considered. This is based on the availability of vehicle load information in real time, which can be captured using wireless sensor technologies. A heuristic algorithm to plan routes is also proposed. Results show that vehicle routing with backup provisioning can be a way of providing sustainable urban mobility with efficient use of resources, while increasing quality of service perceived by users.