An efficiently novel model for vehicle routing problems with stochastic demands

In this paper, the Vehicle Routing Problem with Stochastic Demands (VRPSD) is considered where customer demands are normally distributed. We propose a new model for computing the expected length of a tour. Monte Carlo simulation is used to demonstrate the accuracy of the model on randomly generated test problems. It is assumed that the service policy is non-divisible, meaning that the entire demand at each customer must be served in a single visit by a unique vehicle.