Using regression models to understand the impact of route-length variability in practical vehicle routing

In this short paper, we use regression models to highlight a key point in practical vehicle routing. In particular, we focus on an important problem experienced by delivery and service companies. These companies dispatch vehicles to deliver products and provide services to customers. For the capacitated vehicle routing problem, we show that reducing route-length variability while generating vehicle routes is an important consideration to minimize the total operating and delivery costs for a company encountering random traffic.