Route Compactness in Routing Problems: A Comparison of Exact Approaches to Solve a non-Linear Model

The compactness of routes in distribution planning is a criterion that has been under explored in logistics literature, despite its notable impact on the practical implementation of routing plans, such as in solid waste collection. This article addresses this gap by introducing a bi-objective model to optimize the vehicle routing problem with time constraints, focusing on minimizing travel times and enhancing route compactness. Experimental tests on small-scale instances were performed using two exact multi-objective solution methods: the weighted sum and the augmented E-constraint methods. The results provided insights into the trade-off between the two objectives while assessing the computational efficiency of both solution approaches.