A life cycle assessment of electric towing vehicle routing problem with time windows: Three-stage linear charging and partial charging strategy

With the increasing demand for air travel, replacing fuel-powered towing vehicles (FTVs) with electric towing vehicles (ETVs) is a proven strategy for reducing airport ground service costs. The effective deployment and operation of these ETV fleets heavily rely on sophisticated optimization models to manage their daily scheduling and charging. However, previous optimization models often overlook comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) and employ simplified charging assumptions, limiting their accuracy and practical applicability. This study addresses these gaps by introducing an innovative Electric Towing Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows considering Life Cycle (ETVRPTW-LC) model, categorizing life cycle costs into fixed, operational, and environmental costs. Furthermore, integrating a three-stage linear charging and partial charging strategy enhances model fidelity by more accurately simulating the non-linear and operational realities of ETV recharging compared to traditional linear or full-charge approaches. The Adaptive Large Neighbourhood Search (ALNS) algorithm and Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm are applied to address local optimality. Numerical experiments, using data from Nanjing Lukou International Airport across three scenarios, demonstrate key findings: (1) ETVs achieve a 5 %–10 % cost advantage over FTVs when considering life cycle costs. (2) ETV costs are concentrated in pre-operation and post-operation phases, while fuel-powered costs dominate the operational phase. Additionally, sensitivity analysis evaluates the impact of key operational parameters on life cycle costs. The results provide airport managers with optimized strategies for towing operations for cost efficiency and airport decarbonization.