# Collaborative vehicle routing: a survey

## TL;DR

This survey reviews the state of research on collaborative vehicle routing, highlighting three main approaches—centralized, decentralized without auctions, and auction-based decentralized planning—and discusses future research directions.

## Contribution

It provides a structured overview of existing research streams in collaborative vehicle routing and identifies gaps and future directions.

## Key findings

- Three major research streams identified: centralized, decentralized without auctions, auction-based.
- Comprehensive overview of current knowledge in collaborative vehicle routing.
- Discussion of future research challenges and opportunities.

## Abstract

In horizontal collaborations, carriers form coalitions in order to perform parts of their logistics operations jointly. By exchanging transportation requests among each other, they can operate more efficiently and in a more sustainable way. Collaborative vehicle routing has been extensively discussed in the literature. We identify three major streams of research: (i) centralized collaborative planning, (ii) decentralized planning without auctions, and (ii) auction-based decentralized planning. For each of them we give a structured overview on the state of knowledge and discuss future research directions.