A unified tabu search heuristic for vehicle routing problems with time windows

This paper presents a unified tabu search heuristic for the vehicle routing problem with time windows and for two important generalizations: the periodic and the multi-depot vehicle routing problems with time windows. The major benefits of the approach are its speed, simplicity and flexibility. The performance of the heuristic is assessed by comparing it to alternative methods on benchmark instances of the vehicle routing problem with time windows. Computational experiments are also reported on new randomly generated instances for each of the two generalizations.     

Symmetry helps: Bounded bi-directional dynamic programming for the elementary shortest path problem with resource constraints

When vehicle routing problems with additional constraints, such as capacity or time windows, are solved via column generation and branch-and-price, it is common that the pricing subproblem requires the computation of a minimum cost constrained path on a graph with costs on the arcs and prizes on the vertices. A common solution technique for this problem is dynamic programming. In this paper we illustrate how the basic dynamic programming algorithm can be improved by bounded bi-directional search and we experimentally evaluate the effectiveness of the enhancement proposed. We consider as benchmark problems the elementary shortest path problems arising as pricing subproblems in branch-and-price algorithms for the capacitated vehicle routing problem, the vehicle routing problem with distribution and collection and the capacitated vehicle routing problem with time windows.     

A tutorial on column generation and branch-and-price for vehicle routing problems

This paper provides a tutorial on column generation and branch-and-price for vehicle routing problems. The main principles and the basic theory of the methods are first outlined. Some additional issues, including reinforcement of the relaxation or stabilization, complete the paper. For the sake of simplicity, this material is illustrated with the case of the vehicle routing problem with time windows.     

Heuristics and memetic algorithm for the two-dimensional loading capacitated vehicle routing problem with time windows

This work deals with a new combinatorial optimization problem, the two-dimensional loading capacitated vehicle routing problem with time windows which is a realistic extension of the well known vehicle routing problem. The studied problem consists in determining vehicle trips to deliver rectangular objects to a set of customers with known time windows, using a homogeneous fleet of vehicles, while ensuring a feasible loading of each vehicle used. Since it includes NP-hard routing and packing sub-problems, six heuristics are firstly designed to quickly compute good solutions for realistic instances. They are obtained by combining algorithms for the vehicle routing problem with time windows with heuristics for packing rectangles. Then, a Memetic algorithm is developed to improve the heuristic solutions. The quality and the efficiency of the proposed heuristics and metaheuristic are evaluated by adding time windows to a set of 144 instances with 15–255 customers and 15–786 items, designed by Iori et al. (Transport Sci 41:253–264, 2007) for the case without time windows.     

A note on the lifted Miller–Tucker–Zemlin subtour elimination constraints for routing problems with time windows

We propose lifted versions of the Miller–Tucker–Zemlin subtour elimination constraints for routing problems with time windows (TW). The constraints are valid for problems such as the travelling salesman problem with TW, the vehicle routing problem with TW, the generalized travelling salesman problem with TW, and the general vehicle routing problem with TW. They are corrected versions of the constraints proposed by Desrochers and Laporte (1991).     

Scatter search for the fleet size and mix vehicle routing problem with time windows

This work proposes a scatter search (SS) approach to solve the fleet size and mix vehicle routing problem with time windows (FSMVRPTW). In the FSMVRPTW the customers need to be serviced in their time windows at minimal costs by a heterogeneous fleet. Computational results on 168 benchmark problems are reported. Computational testing revealed that our algorithm presented better results compared to other methods published in the literature.     

An optimization approach for communal home meal delivery service: A case study

This paper is the first to discuss the communal home meal delivery problem. The problem can be modelled as a multiple travelling salesman problem with time windows, that is closely related to the well-studied vehicle routing problem with time windows. Experimental results are reported for a real-life case study from Central Finland over several alternative scenarios using the SPIDER commercial solver. The comparison with current practice reveals that a significant savings potential can be obtained using off-the-shelf optimization tools. As such, the potential for supporting real-life communal routing problems can be considered to be important for VRP practitioners.     

Solving multiobjective vehicle routing problem with stochastic demand via evolutionary computation

This paper considers the routing of vehicles with limited capacity from a central depot to a set of geographically dispersed customers where actual demand is revealed only when the vehicle arrives at the customer. The solution to this vehicle routing problem with stochastic demand (VRPSD) involves the optimization of complete routing schedules with minimum travel distance, driver remuneration, and number of vehicles, subject to a number of constraints such as time windows and vehicle capacity. To solve such a multiobjective and multi-modal combinatorial optimization problem, this paper presents a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm that incorporates two VRPSD-specific heuristics for local exploitation and a route simulation method to evaluate the fitness of solutions. A new way of assessing the quality of solutions to the VRPSD on top of comparing their expected costs is also proposed. It is shown that the algorithm is capable of finding useful tradeoff solutions for the VRPSD and the solutions are robust to the stochastic nature of the problem. The developed algorithm is further validated on a few VRPSD instances adapted from Solomon’s vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) benchmark problems.     

An exact algorithm for a single-vehicle routing problem with time windows and multiple routes

This paper describes an exact algorithm for solving a problem where the same vehicle performs several routes to serve a set of customers with time windows. The motivation comes from the home delivery of perishable goods, where vehicle routes are short and must be combined to form a working day. A method based on an elementary shortest path algorithm with resource constraints is proposed to solve this problem. The method is divided into two phases: in the first phase, all non-dominated feasible routes are generated; in the second phase, some routes are selected and sequenced to form the vehicle workday. Computational results are reported on Euclidean problems derived from benchmark instances of the classical vehicle routing problem with time windows.     

An exact algorithm for a vehicle routing problem with time windows and multiple use of vehicles

The vehicle routing problem with multiple use of vehicles is a variant of the classical vehicle routing problem. It arises when each vehicle performs several routes during the workday due to strict time limits on route duration (e.g., when perishable goods are transported). The routes are defined over customers with a revenue, a demand and a time window. Given a fixed-size fleet of vehicles, it might not be possible to serve all customers. Thus, the customers must be chosen based on their associated revenue minus the traveling cost to reach them. We introduce a branch-and-price approach to address this problem where lower bounds are computed by solving the linear programming relaxation of a set packing formulation, using column generation. The pricing subproblems are elementary shortest path problems with resource constraints. Computational results are reported on euclidean problems derived from well-known benchmark instances for the vehicle routing problem with time windows.     

遗传算法与蚂蚁算法的融合在带时间窗的车辆路径问题中的应用

对带时间窗的车辆路径问题(VRPTW)的求解分为两个过程,先由遗传算法求解出初步的可行解,由此生成信息素初始分布,而后采用蚂蚁算法找出问题的最优解或近似最优解.通过具体算例,从数值计算上探索了遗传算法和蚂蚁算法融合后的优化能力,获得了满意的效果.     

Arc routing problems with time-dependent service costs

This paper studies an arc routing problem with capacity constraints and time-dependent service costs. This problem is motivated by winter gritting applications where the “timing” of each intervention is crucial. The exact problem-solving approach reported here first transforms the arc routing problem into an equivalent node routing problem. Then, a column generation scheme is used to solve the latter. The master problem is a classical set covering problem, while the subproblems are time-dependent shortest path problems with resource constraints. These subproblems are solved using an extension of a previously developed algorithm. Computational results are reported on problems derived from a set of classical instances of the vehicle routing problem with time windows.     

A tabu search algorithm for the multi-trip vehicle routing and scheduling problem

This paper describes a novel tabu search heuristic for the multi-trip vehicle routing and scheduling problem (MTVRSP). The method was developed to tackle real distribution problems, taking into account most of the constraints that appear in practice. In the MTVRSP, besides the constraints that are common to the basic vehicle routing problem, the following ones are present: during each day a vehicle can make more than one trip; the customers impose delivery time windows; the vehicles have different capacities considered in terms of both volume and weight; the access to some customers is restricted to some vehicles; the drivers' schedules must respect the maximum legal driving time per day and the legal time breaks; the unloading times are considered.     

A robust optimization approach to dispatching technicians under stochastic service times

We consider the problem of dispatching technicians to service/repair geographically distributed equipment. This problem can be cast as a vehicle routing problem with time windows, where customers expect fast response and small delays. Estimates of the service time, however, can be subject to a significant amount of uncertainty due to misdiagnosis of the reason for failure or surprises during repair. It is therefore crucial to develop routes for the technicians that would be less sensitive to substantial deviations from estimated service times. In this paper we propose a robust optimization model for the vehicle routing problem with soft time windows and service time uncertainty and solve real-world instances with a branch and price method. We evaluate the efficiency of the approach through computational experiments on real industry routing data.     

The open vehicle routing problem with time windows

In this paper, we consider the open vehicle routing problem with time windows (OVRPTW). The OVRPTW seeks to find a set of non-depot returning vehicle routes, for a fleet of capacitated vehicles, to satisfy customers’ requirements, within fixed time intervals that represent the earliest and latest times during the day that customers’ service can take place. We formulate a comprehensive mathematical model to capture all aspects of the problem, and incorporate in the model all critical practical concerns. The model is solved using a greedy look-ahead route construction heuristic algorithm, which utilizes time windows related information via composite customer selection and route-insertion criteria. These criteria exploit the interrelationships between customers, introduced by time windows, that dictate the sequence in which vehicles must visit customers. Computational results on a set of benchmark problems from the literature provide very good results and indicate the applicability of the methodology in real-life routing applications.     

双需求集货送货一体化车辆路径问题的数学模型及算法

本文研究了具有总时间和车容量约束的双需求集货送货一体化车辆路径问题,在综合考虑运输费用和车辆出行固定费用的前提下,建立了该问题的整数线性规划模型,并分别给出了求解该模型的精确算法和基于节约准则的启发式算法。最后通过一个具体实例验证了算法的有效性。     

The vehicle routing problem with coupled time windows

In this article we introduce the vehicle routing problem with coupled time windows (VRPCTW), which is an extension of the vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW), where additional coupling constraints on the time windows are imposed. VRPCTW is applied to model a real-world planning problem concerning the integrated optimization of school starting times and public bus services. A mixed-integer programming formulation for the VRPCTW within this context is given. It is solved using a new meta-heuristic that combines classical construction aspects with mixed-integer preprocessing techniques, and improving hit-and-run, a randomized search strategy from global optimization. Solutions for several randomly generated and real-world instances are presented.     

Recent progress of local search in handling the time window constraints of the vehicle routing problem

Vehicle routing and scheduling problems have a wide range of applications and have been intensively studied in the past half century. The condition that enforces each vehicle to start service at each customer in the period specified by the customer is called the time window constraint. This paper reviews recent results on how to handle hard and soft time window constraints, putting emphasis on its different definitions and algorithms. With these diverse time windows, the problem becomes applicable to a wide range of real-world problems.     

Iterated local search for workforce scheduling and routing problems

The integration of scheduling workers to perform tasks with the traditional vehicle routing problem gives rise to the workforce scheduling and routing problems (WSRP). In the WSRP, a number of service technicians with different skills, and tasks at different locations with pre-defined time windows and skill requirements are given. It is required to find an assignment and ordering of technicians to tasks, where each task is performed within its time window by a technician with the required skill, for which the total cost of the routing is minimized. This paper describes an iterated local search (ILS) algorithm for the WSRP. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated on benchmark instances against an off-the-shelf optimizer and an existing adaptive large neighbourhood search algorithm. The proposed ILS algorithm is also applied to solve the skill vehicle routing problem, which can be viewed as a special case of the WSRP. The computational results indicate that the proposed algorithm can produce high-quality solutions in short computation times.     

基于遗传算法的物流配送车辆调度问题研究

研究使用遗传算法求解物流配送组织过程中车辆调度问题 .通过把时间窗约束和车辆容量约束转嫁到最小费用目标函数中去 ,建立适合于遗传算法的车辆调度模型 .阐述放回式随机复制算子和适应度函数 ,设计描述行驶线路的染色体结构、初始群体生成方法、独特的交叉算子和交换变异算子 ,构造完整的遗传算法 .并给出算例 ,验证调度模型和遗传算法 .