A two-phase heuristic algorithm to solve the large-scale vehicle routing problem

During the past several decades, many researchers in the world have been studying vehicle routing problem (VRP), and many kinds of solutions have been presented. It is very important to select an appropriate algorithm to solve VRP in practice. In developed countries, some research achievements have been applied in many fields, such as mailing newspapers, multiple-shops distributing, etc. However, relative research and application in this field are comparatively lagged in China. This paper is based on the project of "Logistics Distribution System Based on Modern Information Technology". Relative literatures on VRP algorithms are reviewed. According to a great number of nodes and complicated real streets, a two-phase heuristic algorithm is used to solve the large-scale VRP. In the first phase, the initial solution is obtained by using the modified Nearest Neighbour Heuristic algorithm. In the second phase, Insert Method is used to improve this initial solution. Data of 536 nodes in practice is inputted into the system to test above-mentioned algorithm. The simulation results show that a good solution is obtained by using above-mentioned two-phase algorithm, which can be adopted to solve the large-scale VRP.