Particle swarm optimization for vehicle routing problem

The vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a kind of combination NP problem which possesses important practical value. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a newly appeared method for swarm intelligence optimization. PSO is used in this paper to solve the VRP. This paper proposes a novel particle presentation for the vehicle routing problem, establishes an algorithm of PSO for this kind of problem, and compares PSO with GA in the same VRP experiments. Experimental results indicate that the established algorithm of PSO can quickly and effectively get optimal solution to the vehicle routing problem, which demonstrates that the algorithm is an effective method for solving the vehicle routing problem.