An analytical bound on the fleet size in vehicle routing problems: a dynamic programming approach

Abstract

We present an analytical upper bound on the number of required vehicles for vehicle routing problems with split deliveries and any number of capacitated depots. We show that a fleet size greater than the proposed bound is not achievable based on a set of common assumptions. This property of the upper bound is proved through a dynamic programming approach. We also discuss the validity of the bound for a wide variety of routing problems with or without split deliveries.