Optimal Routes Selection in Distribution of Oil Products

Oil and oil products belong to the category of hazmat materials, which cause specific requirements to distribution and optimal route defining. Therefore, risk minimization must be comprised when vehicle routing problems, with hazmats being considered. Hence, in addition to total costs minimization, customer service increasing, and minimization of resources, risk minimization should be optimization criteria as well.
Regarding to the fact that transport and distribution generate certain risk, those problems become very popular in research and practice. Therefore, in available literature different risk definitions and few different solving approaches in risk quantification can be found.
Accordingly, aim of this paper is to present some possibilities for risk reducing in oil products distribution. Attention has paid particularly to the area of operational transport management – fleet management, and routing as two of the most important phases in distribution processes. The paper encompasses recent results in this area, and presents model for optimal route selecting under criteria of risk minimization. Also, effects of different approaches in risk determination were analyzed on numerical example.