---
title: "Solomon VRPTW instances: research papers using this data"
description: "From Nov 2023 to Oct 2026, 30 archived papers mentioned Solomon VRPTW instances in their title, abstract or keywords (the search of earlier months' full texts is still under way), most of them in Nov 2023 (3)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/solomon-vrptw-instances
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/solomon-vrptw-instances.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From Nov 2023 to Oct 2026, 30 archived papers mentioned Solomon VRPTW instances in their title, abstract or keywords (the search of earlier months' full texts is still under way), most of them in Nov 2023 (3). (as of 2026-11-05)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-05T06:02:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Solomon VRPTW instances

[Browse dataset profiles](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/directory/page/6.md)

Standard problem instances for routing, scheduling and integer programming, and test functions for metaheuristics.

- data category: Optimization benchmark instances
- 0 papers in the last 7 days
- Names searched for: Solomon instances, Solomon benchmark, Solomon's instances, Solomon's benchmark

Most-used data: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/datasets.md · All Optimization benchmark instances datasets: https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/optimization-benchmark-instances.md



## Key findings

- From Nov 2023 to Oct 2026, 30 archived papers mentioned Solomon VRPTW instances in their title, abstract or keywords (the search of earlier months' full texts is still under way), most of them in Nov 2023 (3).
- No paper of the tracked journals mentioned Solomon VRPTW instances in the last 30 days (2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05).
- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), Solomon VRPTW instances was mentioned in 45 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (33), AI (11) and information systems (1).
- 8 of them were published in 2025, against 1 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Eindhoven University of Technology (3), KU Leuven (3) and Central South University (2).
- The journals publishing most of them were European Journal of Operational Research (5), Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies (4) and Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review (4).
- The most-cited of them is “A branch-and-price algorithm for the heterogeneous fleet green vehicle routing problem with time windows” (Transportation Research Part B Methodological, 2019), with 160 citations.
- Papers use Solomon VRPTW instances most often with International Energy Agency (IEA) (3); it has 1 partners in the code and data network, in the group around World Development…, Eurostat, International Energy….

## Mentions over 36 months

*Papers mentioning it by publication month, Nov 2023 to Oct 2026 (titles, abstracts and keywords; the full texts of earlier months are still being searched)*

| Trend | Nov 23–Oct 24 | Nov 24–Oct 25 | Nov 25–Oct 26 | 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|
|  | 7 | 9 | 14 | 30 |

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 11 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| All categories | 1 | 0 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 13 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [European Journal of Operational Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/european-journal-of-operational-research.md) | 5 |
| 2 | [Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-c-emerging-technologies.md) | 4 |
| 3 | [Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-e-logistics-and-transportation-review.md) | 4 |
| 4 | [OR Spectrum](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/or-spectrum.md) | 2 |
| 5 | [Transportation Research Part B Methodological](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-b-methodological.md) | 2 |
| 6 | [Annals of Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-operations-research.md) | 2 |
| 7 | [Computers & Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-operations-research.md) | 2 |
| 8 | [Applied Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/applied-intelligence.md) | 2 |
| 9 | [Operations Research Perspectives](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/operations-research-perspectives.md) | 2 |
| 10 | [IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-pattern-analysis-and-machine-intelligence.md) | 1 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Eindhoven University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/eindhoven-university-of-technology.md) | 3 |
| 2 | [KU Leuven](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/ku-leuven.md) | 3 |
| 3 | [Central South University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/central-south-university.md) | 2 |
| 4 | HEC Montréal | 2 |
| 5 | [Tianjin University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tianjin-university.md) | 2 |
| 6 | Aalborg University | 1 |
| 7 | [Amazon (United States)](https://scholar4ai.com/companies/amazon-united-states.md) | 1 |
| 8 | Aston University | 1 |
| 9 | Athens University of Economics and Business | 1 |
| 10 | [Beihang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beihang-university.md) | 1 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 9 |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 5 |
| 3 | Netherlands | 5 |
| 4 | Canada | 4 |
| 5 | Belgium | 3 |
| 6 | Germany | 3 |
| 7 | United States | 3 |
| 8 | Austria | 2 |
| 9 | Singapore | 2 |
| 10 | United Arab Emirates | 1 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [vehicle routing](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/vehicle-routing.md) | 9 |
| 2 | last-mile delivery | 7 |
| 3 | branch-price-and-cut | 5 |
| 4 | time windows | 5 |
| 5 | vehicle routing problem with time windows | 4 |
| 6 | Solomon benchmark instances | 3 |
| 7 | branch-and-price | 3 |
| 8 | capacitated vehicle routing problem | 3 |
| 9 | hybrid metaheuristic | 3 |
| 10 | [CO2 emissions](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/co2-emissions.md) | 2 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 160 | 1.7 | [A branch-and-price algorithm for the heterogeneous fleet green vehicle routing problem with time windows](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trb.2019.03.009) | [Transportation Research Part B Methodological](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-b-methodological.md) | 2019-03-20 | Yang Yu, Sihan Wang, Junwei Wang et al. |
| 2 | 143 | 1.7 | [Crowd-shipping with time windows and transshipment nodes](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2019.104806) | [Computers & Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-operations-research.md) | 2019-09-21 | Giusy Macrina, Luigi Di Puglia Pugliese, Francesca Guerriero et al. |
| 3 | 93 | 1.0 | [A multi-compartment vehicle routing problem with time windows for urban distribution – A comparison study on particle swarm optimization algorithms](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2019.05.008) | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 2019-05-08 | Jiumei Chen, Jing Shi |
| 4 | 65 | 0.8 | [Hybrid multiobjective evolutionary algorithm with fast sampling strategy-based global search and route sequence difference-based local search for VRPTW](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2019.113151) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 2019-12-20 | Wenqiang Zhang, Diji Yang, Guohui Zhang et al. |
| 5 | 64 | 1.8 | [A neighborhood comprehensive learning particle swarm optimization for the vehicle routing problem with time windows](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.swevo.2023.101425) | [Swarm and Evolutionary Computation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/swarm-and-evolutionary-computation.md) | 2023-11-20 | Qichao Wu, Xuewen Xia, Haojie Song et al. |

## Used together with

Papers use Solomon VRPTW instances most often with International Energy Agency (IEA) (3); it has 1 partners in the code and data network, in the group around World Development…, Eurostat, International Energy….

*What papers use Solomon VRPTW instances together with (at least 3 papers; lift 1 = chance)*

| Used with | Type | Papers using both | Lift |
|---|---|---:|---:|
| [International Energy Agency (IEA)](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/international-energy-agency-iea.md) | Dataset | 3 | 3.4 |

The whole network: https://scholar4ai.com/code/network.md

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Solomon VRPTW instances. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/solomon-vrptw-instances

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-datasets-solomon-vrptw-instances,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Solomon VRPTW instances},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/solomon-vrptw-instances}},
  urldate = {2026-11-05},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).