In the last decades
,
the increasing quality of services requested by the cust
omer, yields to the necessity of
optimizing
the whole distribution process.
This goal may be achieved through a smart exploitation of
existing resources other than a clever planning of the whole distribution process. For doing that, it is
necessary to enha
nce goods consolidation.
One of the most efficient way to implement
it
is to adopt
Multi
-
Echelon distribution systems
which are very common in
City Logistic context,
in which they allow
to keep large trucks from the city center, with strong
environmental
a
dvantages
.
The aim of the
paper
is to
review
routing
problems
arising
in City Logistics
, in which multi
-
e
chelon distribution systems are
involved: the
Two Echelon
Location Routing Problem (
2E
-
LRP)
, the Two
Echelon Vehicle Routing
Problem (2E
-
VRP) and Truck and Trailer Routing Problem (TTRP), and to discuss literature on
optimization methods, both exact and heuristic, developed to address these problems
