The Impact of Metaheuristics on Solving the Vehicle Routing Problem: Algorithms, Problem Sets, and Computational Results

In the standard, capacitated vehicle routing problem (VRP), a homogeneous fleet of vehicles services a set of customers from a single depot. Each vehicle has a fixed capacity that cannot be exceeded and each customer has a known demand that must be satisfied. Each customer must be serviced by exactly one visit of a single vehicle and each vehicle must leave and return to the depot. There may be route-length restrictions that limit the distance traveled by each vehicle. The objective is to generate a sequence of deliveries for each vehicle so that all customers are serviced and the total distance traveled by the fleet is minimized.

[1]  Yves Rochat,et al.  Probabilistic diversification and intensification in local search for vehicle routing , 1995, J. Heuristics.

[2]  Steve Y. Chiu,et al.  Fine-tuning a tabu search algorithm with statistical tests , 1998 .

[3]  G. Clarke,et al.  Scheduling of Vehicles from a Central Depot to a Number of Delivery Points , 1964 .

[4]  Samuel J. Raff,et al.  Routing and scheduling of vehicles and crews : The state of the art , 1983, Comput. Oper. Res..

[5]  Ibrahim H. Osman,et al.  Metastrategy simulated annealing and tabu search algorithms for the vehicle routing problem , 1993, Ann. Oper. Res..

[6]  Gilbert Laporte,et al.  A Tabu Search Heuristic for the Vehicle Routing Problem , 1991 .

[7]  John E. Beasley,et al.  OR-Library: Distributing Test Problems by Electronic Mail , 1990 .

[8]  James P. Kelly,et al.  A Network Flow-Based Tabu Search Heuristic for the Vehicle Routing Problem , 1996, Transp. Sci..

[9]  Hassan Ghaziri,et al.  Supervision in the Self-Organizing Feature Map: Application to the Vehicle Routing Problem , 1996 .

[10]  C. Reeves.  Modern heuristic techniques for combinatorial problems , 1993 .

[11]  Bruce L. Golden,et al.  A new heuristic for the multi-depot vehicle routing problem that improves upon best-known solutions , 1993 .

[12]  Alex Van Breedam,et al.  Improvement heuristics for the Vehicle Routing Problem based on simulated annealing , 1995 .

[13]  Billy E. Gillett,et al.  A Heuristic Algorithm for the Vehicle-Dispatch Problem , 1974, Oper. Res..

[14]  Steven J. Robertson,et al.  Neural network models for initial public offerings , 1998, Neurocomputing.

[15]  G. Dueck.  New optimization heuristics , 1993 .

[16]  George B. Dantzig,et al.  The Truck Dispatching Problem , 1959 .

[17]  Thomas L. Magnanti,et al.  Implementing vehicle routing algorithms , 1977, Networks.

[18]  H. D. Ratliff,et al.  Set partitioning based heuristics for interactive routing , 1981, Networks.

[19]  I H Osman,et al.  Meta-Heuristics Theory and Applications , 2011 .

[20]  Catherine Roucairol,et al.  A Parallel Tabu Search Algorithm Using Ejection Chains for the Vehicle Routing Problem , 1996 .

[21]  Gilbert Laporte,et al.  The vehicle routing problem: An overview of exact and approximate algorithms , 1992 .

[22]  Attahiru Sule Alfa,et al.  A 3-OPT based simulated annealing algorithm for vehicle routing problems , 1991 .

[23]  R. S. Barr,et al.  Interfaces in Computer Science and Operations Research: Advances in Metaheuristics, Optimization, and Stochastic Modelling Technologies , 1997 .

[24]  Bruce L. Golden,et al.  An improved heuristic for the period vehicle routing problem , 1995, Networks.

[25]  Nicos Christofides,et al.  The vehicle routing problem , 1976, Revue française d'automatique, informatique, recherche opérationnelle. Recherche opérationnelle.

[26]  J. K. Lenstra,et al.  Local Search in Combinatorial Optimisation. , 1997 .

[27]  Gerhard W. Dueck,et al.  Threshold accepting: a general purpose optimization algorithm appearing superior to simulated anneal , 1990 .

[28]  Reginald R. Souleyrette,et al.  Implementing Vehicle Routing Models , 1990 .

[29]  Alex Van Breedam,et al.  An analysis of the behavior of heuristics for the vehicle routing problem for a selection of problems with vehicle-relatezd, customer-related, and time-related constraints , 1994 .

[30]  Nicos Christofides,et al.  An Algorithm for the Vehicle-dispatching Problem , 1969 .

[31]  Fred Glover,et al.  Tabu Search and Adaptive Memory Programming — Advances, Applications and Challenges , 1997 .

[32]  Éric D. Taillard,et al.  Parallel iterative search methods for vehicle routing problems , 1993, Networks.

[33]  Marshall L. Fisher,et al.  Optimal Solution of Vehicle Routing Problems Using Minimum K-Trees , 1994, Oper. Res..

[34]  Éric D. Taillard,et al.  Solving real-life vehicle routing problems efficiently using tabu search , 1993, Ann. Oper. Res..

[35]  William J. Cook,et al.  Combinatorial optimization , 1997 .

[36]  Bruce L. Golden,et al.  VEHICLE ROUTING: METHODS AND STUDIES , 1988 .

[37]  James P. Kelly,et al.  Meta-Heuristics: An Overview , 1996 .

[38]  Robert A. Russell,et al.  Technical Note - An Effective Heuristic for the M-Tour Traveling Salesman Problem with Some Side Conditions , 1977, Oper. Res..

[39]  Marshall L. Fisher,et al.  A generalized assignment heuristic for vehicle routing , 1981, Networks.