Technical Note—Worst-Case Benefit of Restocking for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Stochastic Demands

The extant literature on the vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands indicates that the restocking strategy yields moderate percentage expected cost reductions relative to the a priori approach but lacks theoretical support for this improvement. We conduct a worst-case analysis that corroborates the observed restocking benefits and enhances our understanding of a foundational model in logistics under uncertainty.