VEHICLE-ROUTING IN THE CASE OF UNCERTAIN DEMAND - A BAYESIAN-APPROACH

The ''classical'' stochastic vehicle routing problem includes the stoc hasticity of the demands but presupposes that the distributions of the demands at the nodes are known. In this paper we assume that the dist ributions of the demands at the nodes are not known. This assumption b rings even more uncertainty to a problem which is already complex. In practice, when such a problem is faced, then, almost as a rule, the re al problem is transformed into a ''convenient'' one by neglecting the fact that the distributions are not known, i.e. by introducing some ap propriate distributions which make the problem solvable. This paper su ggests how to solve the real problem taking into account the uncertain ty, i.e. the fact that the distributions at the nodes are not known. T o deal with the uncertainty the Bayesian approach is used.