A Variable Neighborhood Search for the Multi Depot Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

The aim of this paper is to propose an algorithm based on the philosophy of the Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) to solve Multi Depot Vehicle Routing Problems with Time Windows. The paper has two main contributions. First, from a technical point of view, it presents the first application of a VNS for this problem and several design issues of VNS algorithms are discussed. Second, from a problem oriented point of view the computational results show that the approach is competitive with an existing Tabu Search algorithm with respect to both solution quality and computation times.     

Route stability in vehicle routing decisions: a bi-objective approach using metaheuristics

In this paper, we argue that vehicle routing solutions are often tactical decisions, that should not be changed too often or too much. For marketing or other reasons, vehicle routing solutions should be stable, i.e. a new solution (when e.g. new customers require service) should be as similar as possible to a solution already in use. Simultaneously however, this new solution should still have a good quality in the traditional sense (e.g. small total travel cost). In this paper, we develop a way to measure the difference between two vehicle routing solutions. We use this distance measure to create a metaheuristic approach that will find solutions that are “close” (in the solution space) to a given baseline solution and at the same time have a high quality in the sense that their total distance traveled is small. By using this approach, the dispatcher is offered a choice of Pareto-optimal solutions, allowing him to make a trade-off between changing his existing solution and allowing a longer travel distance. Some experiments are performed to show the effectiveness of the approach.     

Investigation on chaotic motion in hysteretic non-linear suspension system with multi-frequency excitations

This paper presents the investigation on possible chaotic motion in a vehicle suspension system with hysteretic non-linearity, which is subjected to the multi-frequency excitation from road surface. The Melnikov’s function is used to derive the critical condition for the chaotic motion, and then it is investigated that the effects of parameters in non-linear damping on the chaotic field. The path from quasi-periodic to chaotic motion is found via Poincaré map and Lyapunov exponents.     

Vehicle and personnel routing optimization in the service sector: application to water distribution and treatment

We present an overview of the author’s Ph.D. thesis, supervised by P. Dejax and N. Bostel, which was defended in February 2006 at école des Mines de Nantes, France. The thesis is written in French, and is available at . It was conducted in the context of a research contract with a water distribution company. In a first section, we define multiperiod routing problems for service technicians. In a second section, we present some heuristics and a memetic algorithm used to solve these problems. The third section introduces optimal and near-optimal approaches based on column generation. Finally, we present some applications to the real-life case. The methods presented in Sects. 2, 3 and 4 were tested over several sets of problems, based on real-life statistics provided by the company.      

Capillary electrophoresis determinative and GC-MS confirmatory method for water-soluble organic acids in airborne particulate matter and vehicle emission

Urban fine airborne particulate matter (PM2.5) and vehicle emission samples were studied for water-soluble low-molecular-weight carboxylic acids using CE with indirect UV detection. Further identification of these acids was achieved using GC-MS as their butyl esters (after derivatization with BF3/butanol). Several dicarboxylic acids in the range C2-C10 including straight-chain, branched-chain, cis- and trans-unsaturated, and aromatic acids were confirmed by GC-MS. In addition, aromatic acids such as benzoate, phthalate, terephthalate, isophthalate, and 4-methylphtalate were present in such samples, but some of these were not well resolved by the used CE method. Oxocarboxylic acids (Cn(w) with n > 4) were also identified by GC-MS but not determined by CE due to lack of standards. The rapidity and simplicity of the CE method were clearly demonstrated, and the method was observed to be advantageous for routine monitoring of water-soluble organic acids in airborne PM2.5 and vehicle emission at low microg/L levels.     

汽车防抱制动装置控制机理研究

根据轮胎附着特性对汽车制动性能的影响，研究分析了车轮制动抱死过程中的运动规律，指出了防止止轮制动抱死的着急控制参数，阐述了防抱制动装置的控制过程。     

汽车冷却系中风扇的优选方法

介绍了风扇在系统中匹配点的确定及其优选方法，并给出了应用实例。通过不同结构形式的风扇样品，根据其性能建立风扇性能数据库。应用风机相似理论，对风扇进行匹配和优选，可以大大减少汽车风扇设计中的设计和试验工作量，节约成本，提高效率。     

Matlab环境下车辆的开环操纵稳定性仿真

应用Matlab软件的语言和图形功能，在频域和时域内对二自由度车辆多状态变量进行了动力学仿真。仿真结果表明，低速时，车辆动态特性呈过阻尼状态；高速时，呈欠阻尼状态，各状态量响应在工作频带内出现谐振，恶化了车辆的操纵稳定性。     

交通控制子区划分方法研究

交通控制子区划分主要将相邻的众多交叉口划分为若干个交通子区进行干线协调控制,可有效缓解交通拥堵现象,但现有方法划分出的交通子区无法满足实际协调控制的准确性与鲁棒性。为解决这一难题,结合当前流行的划分技术,考虑4个影响因素:信号交叉口间距、交通流量、周期、通行能力,建立模糊C均值聚类划分方法,再通过实例,借助Vissim仿真软件,验证方法的适用性与可行性。Vissim仿真结果表明:与传统协调控制方法相比,方法可使系统车均延误时间减少27%,协调相位行车时间减少20%。     

The Capacitated Team Orienteering Problem: A Bi-level Filter-and-Fan method

This paper focuses on vehicle routing problems with profits and addresses the so-called Capacitated Team Orienteering Problem. Given a set of customers with a priori known profits and demands, the objective is to find the subset of customers, for which the collected profit is maximized, and to determine the visiting sequence and assignment to vehicle routes assuming capacity and route duration restrictions. The proposed method adopts a hierarchical bi-level search framework that takes advantage of different search landscapes. At the upper level, the solution space is explored on the basis of the collected profit, using a Filter-and-Fan method and a combination of profit oriented neighborhoods, while at the lower level the routing of customers is optimized in terms of traveling distance via a Variable Neighborhood Descent method. Computational experiments on benchmark data sets illustrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approach. Compared to existing results, new upper bounds are produced with competitive computational times.