From Single-Objective to Multi-Objective Vehicle Routing Problems: Motivations, Case Studies, and Methods

Multi-objective optimization knows a fast growing interest for both academic researches and real-life problems. An important domain is the one of vehicle routing problems. In this chapter, we present the possible motivations for applying multi-objective optimization on vehicle routing problems and the potential uses and benefits of doing so. To illustrate this fact, we also describe two problems, namely the vehicle routing problem with route balancing and the bi-objective covering tour problem. We also propose a two-phased approach based on the combination of a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm and single-objective techniques that respectively provide diversification and intensification for the search in the objective space. Examples of implementation of this method are provided on the two problems.

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