Speed optimization algorithm with routing to minimize fuel consumption under time-dependent travel conditions

With increasing interest in reducing fuel consumption and related pollution caused by transportation services, a speed optimization problem that derives speeds of a vehicle given a fixed route to customers has become significant, given that fuel consumption of vehicles is a function of their speeds. Following this interest, we address a speed optimization problem under time-dependent travel conditions. Motivated by the fact that altering the fixed route in response to the time-dependent condition would contribute to minimizing fuel consumption for transportation services, a routing decision is also involved in the problem formulation. To solve this problem, we propose an exact approach with approximation schemes to handle its complexity. Through the experiments, we verify the performance of the proposed approach in terms of finding near-optimal solutions within a short computation time as well as how the routing decision contributes to minimizing fuel consumption for transportation services.