The paper entitled “The Load-Dependent Vehicle Routing Problem and its Pick-up and Delivery Extension” by Professor Christos Tarantilis, (co-authored by Dr. Emmanouil Zahariadis and Prof. Chris Kiranoudis), will appear in “Transportation Research Part B: Methodological” journal (2015, vol. 71, pp 158–181) which is ranked by the Association of Business Schools (ABS) as the top journal in the field of transportation (i.e. grade 4 journal).
The paper examines a vehicle routing problem (VRP) of major practical importance, referred to as the Load Dependent VRP (LDVRP). LDVRP is applicable for transportation activities where the weight of the transported cargo accounts for a significant part of the vehicle gross weight. Contrary to the basic VRP which calls for the minimization of the distance travelled, the LDVRP objective is aimed at minimizing the total product of the distance travelled and the gross weight carried along this distance. Thus, it is capable of producing sensible routing plans which take into account the variation of the cargo weight along the vehicle trips. The LDVRP objective is closely related to the total energy requirements of the vehicle fleet, making it a credible alternative when the environmental aspects of transportation activities are examined and optimized.
Dr. Christos Tarantilis is a Professor of Management Science at the Department of Management Science & Technology of Athens University of Economics and Business. He has served as the Head of the Department of Management Science and Technology (2012-2013 and 2013-2014), Chairman of international and national scientific conferences as well as Associate Editor, member of the editorial board and Guest Editor in well-known academic journals (e.g Networks-Wiley, Computers and Operations Research-Elsevier, IEEE Intelligent Systems).
His research interests lie in the area of optimization and decision making techniques for Operations Research, Transportation Planning, Logistics and Operations Management, and Green Supply Chain Management. He has more than 130 scientific papers in international academic journals, books and conferences, including more than 60 journal papers in Web of Science-indexed journals. Some of his work is used as instruction material in academic programs of N. America and Europe, while his algorithms for the solution of large-scale problems in transportation and logistics have been internationally acclaimed. He has been acting as leader and senior researcher in a number of national and EU projects related to transportation planning, supply chain management, green logistics and waste management.
Professor Tarantilis teaches the course “Data, Models and Decisions” to both Full- time and Part-time students of the MBA International program. He has received, more than twenty (20) times, the highest teaching evaluation score from his undergraduate and postgraduate/MBA students.
