A hybrid genetic algorithm with adaptive diversity management for a large class of vehicle routing problems with time-windows

The paper presents an efficient Hybrid Genetic Search with Advanced Diversity Control for a large class of time-constrained vehicle routing problems, introducing several new features to manage the temporal dimension. New move evaluation techniques are proposed, accounting for penalized infeasible solutions with respect to time-window and duration constraints, and allowing to evaluate moves from any classical neighbourhood based on arc or node exchanges in amortized constant time. Furthermore, geometric and structural problem decompositions are developed to address efficiently large problems. The proposed algorithm outperforms all current state-of-the-art approaches on classical literature benchmark instances for any combination of periodic, multi-depot, site-dependent, and duration-constrained vehicle routing problem with time windows.     

Two solution representations for solving multi-depot vehicle routing problem with multiple pickup and delivery requests via PSO

Two solution representations for solving the generalized multi-depot vehicle routing problem with multiple pickup and delivery requests (GVRP-MDMPDR) is presented in this paper. The representations are used in conjunction with GLNPSO, a variant of PSO with multiple social learning terms. The computational experiments are carried out using benchmark test instances for pickup and delivery problem with time windows (PDPTW) and the generalized vehicle routing problem for multi-depot with multiple pickup and delivery requests (GVRP-MDMPDR). The preliminary results illustrate that the proposed method is capable of providing good solutions for most of the test problems.     

MDVRPTW问题多阶段迭代启发式算法

提出一个求解多车库VRPTW问题的聚类和迭代混合遗传算法。该算法采用三阶段过程：客户聚类分配、路径规划和路径改进,与以往两阶段算法不同,该算法采用混合遗传算法进行路径规划,采用竞争-插入进行路径改进,且路径规划与路径改进有机结合形成迭代路径规划过程。用Cordeau等人提出的算例实验表明该算法能够在可以接受的计算时间内得到可接受的好解。     

Heuristics for tactical time slot management: a periodic vehicle routing problem view

In this study, we consider a tactical problem where a time slot schedule for delivery service over a given planning horizon must be selected in each zone of a geographical area. A heuristic search evaluates each schedule selection by constructing a corresponding tactical routing plan of minimum cost based on demand and service time estimates. At the end, the schedule selection leading to the best tactical routing plan is selected. The latter can then be used as a blueprint when addressing the operational problem (i.e., when real customer orders are received and operational routes are constructed). We propose two heuristics to address the tactical problem. The first heuristic is a three‐phase approach: a periodic vehicle routing problem (PVRP) is first solved, followed by a repair phase and a final improvement phase where a vehicle routing problem (VRP) with time windows is solved for each period of the planning horizon. The second heuristic tackles the problem as a whole by directly solving a PVRP with time windows. Computational results compare the two heuristics under various settings, based on instances derived from benchmark instances for the VRP with time windows.     

带软时间窗的开放式满载车辆路径问题研究

为满足某些生产制造企业的满载运输需求,针对运输任务对车辆具有独占性的特点,分析得到总运输费用的大小取决于车辆的空车行驶费用,在此基础上,将带软时间窗的开放式满载车辆路径问题转化为带软时间窗的多车场开放式车辆路径问题,在非对称图上建立了相应的数学模型,并设计了近邻粒子群算法对模型进行求解。设计算例对算法进行了验证,实验结果表明：该算法可以快速求得软时间窗的开放式满载车辆路径问题的满意解。     

A general heuristic for vehicle routing problems

We present a unified heuristic which is able to solve five different variants of the vehicle routing problem: the vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW), the capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP), the multi-depot vehicle routing problem (MDVRP), the site-dependent vehicle routing problem (SDVRP) and the open vehicle routing problem (OVRP).     

带软时间窗的多车场开放式车辆调度

带软时间窗的多车场开放式车辆调度问题是在开放式车辆路径问题的基础上,考虑了多车场和客户服务时间的约束,是一类典型的NP难解问题。针对该问题,提出了一种改进的蚁群算法求解方案,并建立了相应的数学模型。首先通过设置一个虚拟车场将多车场VRP转化为单车场VRP,然后利用参数控制的改进蚁群算法与2-opt算法结合来对模型求解。算法先利用K-means与细菌觅食算法相结合的聚类技术判断蚁群状态,进而动态调整算法参数,使其快速收敛到全局最优解附近,再依据混沌理论的特点来调整参数,使其跳出局部最优。最后,再利用2-opt算法对最优解进行优化。实验结果验证了该算法求解MDOVRPSTW问题的有效性。     

A branch-and-price-and-check model for the vehicle routing problem with location congestion

This paper considers a vehicle routing problem with pickup and delivery, time windows and location congestion. Locations provide a number of cumulative resources that are utilized by vehicles either during service (e.g., forklifts) or for the entirety of their visit (e.g., parking bays). Locations can become congested if insufficient resources are available, upon which vehicles must wait until a resource becomes available before proceeding. The problem is challenging from a computational standpoint since it incorporates the vehicle routing problem and the resource-constrained project scheduling problem. The main contribution of this paper is a branch-and-price-and-check model that uses a branch-and-price algorithm that solves the underlying vehicle routing problem, and a constraint programming subproblem that checks the feasibility of the location resource constraints, and then adds combinatorial nogood cuts to the master problem if the resource constraints are violated. Experimental results show the benefits of the branch-and-price-and-check approach.     

带时间窗的多车场车辆路径优化的粒子群算法

带时间窗的多车场车辆路径问题在基本车辆路径问题的基础上增加了“多车场”与“时间窗”两个约束条件,是一个典型的NP难解问题。将粒子群算法应用于带时间窗的多车场车辆路径优化问题,构造了一种适用于求解车辆路径问题的粒子编码方法,建立了相应的数学模型,在此基础上设计了相应的算法。算例通过和遗传算法、蚁群算法进行比较,证明了其搜索速度和寻优能力的优越性。     

Metaheuristic algorithms for solving two interconnected vehicle routing problems in a hospital complex

This paper addresses a real-life logistic problem arising in the hospital complex of Tours (France). The two-level vehicle routing problem has time windows, a heterogeneous fleet, and multi-depot, multi-commodity and split deliveries. The first level concerns the routing problem for a fleet of vehicles serving several hospital units that delivers medicines, clean linen, meals, various supplies, patient files and picks up waste and dirty linen. The second level concerns the problem of routing employees between buildings within a large hospital unit. Both levels are interconnected. In addition, decisions about sizing and planning the teams of drivers and warehouse employees have to be made. Two metaheuristic algorithms are proposed to solve the entire problem: a genetic algorithm and a tabu search. The algorithms are tested on 100 instances, randomly generated on the basis of real-life instances.     

Fleet-sizing for multi-depot and periodic vehicle routing problems using a modular heuristic algorithm

In this paper, we address the problem of determining the optimal fleet size for three vehicle routing problems, i.e., multi-depot VRP, periodic VRP and multi-depot periodic VRP. In each of these problems, we consider three kinds of constraints that are often found in reality, i.e., vehicle capacity, route duration and budget constraints. To tackle the problems, we propose a new Modular Heuristic Algorithm (MHA) whose exploration and exploitation strategies enable the algorithm to produce promising results. Extensive computational experiments show that MHA performs impressively well, in terms of solution quality and computational time, for the three problem classes.     

VRPSTW的混合改进蚁群优化算法*

软时间窗车辆路径问题（VRPSTW）是VRP的一种重要扩展类型,定义了其惩罚函数并建立数学模型。设计用于求解该问题的混合改进型蚁群算法并求解标准数据库中的紧时间窗实例。经过大量数据测试,获得了较好的效果,并验证了蚁群算法用于求解软时间窗车辆路径问题的成功实现。     

The multi-depot vehicle routing problem with heterogeneous vehicle fleet: Formulation and a variable neighborhood search implementation

The multi-depot fleet size and mix vehicle routing problem, also known as the multi-depot routing with heterogeneous vehicles, is investigated. A mathematical formulation is given and lower as well as upper bounds are produced using a three hour execution time of CPLEX. An efficient implementation of variable neighborhood search that incorporates new features in addition to the adaptation of several existing neighborhoods and local search operators is proposed. These features include a preprocessing scheme for identifying borderline customers, a mechanism that aggregates and disaggregates routes between depots, and a neighborhood reduction test that saves nearly 80% of the CPU time, especially on the large instances. The proposed algorithm is highly competitive as it produces 23 new best results when tested on the 26 data instances published in the literature.     

Multi-start iterated local search for the periodic vehicle routing problem with time windows and time spread constraints on services

In the field of high-value shipment transportation, companies are faced to the malevolence problem. The risk of ambush increases with the predictability of vehicle routes. This paper addresses a very hard periodic vehicle routing problem with time windows, submitted by a software company specialized in transportation problems with security constraints. The hours of visits to each customer over the planning horizon must be spread in the customer's time window. As the aim is to solve real instances, the running time must be reasonable. A mixed integer linear model and a multi-start iterated local search are proposed. Results are reported on instances derived from classical benchmarks for the vehicle routing problem with time windows, and on two practical instances. Experiments are also conducted on a particular case with a single period, the vehicle routing problem with soft time windows: the new metaheuristic competes with two published algorithms and improves six best known solutions.     

An exact hybrid method for the vehicle routing problem with time windows and multiple deliverymen

The vehicle routing problem with time windows and multiple deliverymen (VRPTWMD) is a variant of the vehicle routing problem with time windows in which service times at customers depend on the number of deliverymen assigned to the route that serves them. In particular, a larger number of deliverymen in a route leads to shorter service times. Hence, in addition to the usual routing and scheduling decisions, the crew size for each route is also an endogenous decision. This problem is commonly faced by companies that deliver goods to customers located in busy urban areas, a situation that requires nearby customers to be grouped in advance so that the deliverymen can serve all customers in a group during one vehicle stop. Consequently, service times can be relatively long compared to travel times, which complicates serving all scheduled customers during regular work hours. In this paper, we propose a hybrid method for the VRPTWMD, combining a branch-price-and-cut (BPC) algorithm with two metaheuristic approaches. We present a wide variety of computational results showing that the proposed hybrid approach outperforms the BPC algorithm used as standalone method in terms of both solution quality and running time, in some classes of problem instances from the literature. These results indicate the advantages of using specific algorithms to generate good feasible solutions within an exact method.     

A hybrid evolutionary algorithm for heterogeneous fleet vehicle routing problems with time windows

This paper presents a hybrid evolutionary algorithm (HEA) to solve heterogeneous fleet vehicle routing problems with time windows. There are two main types of such problems, namely the fleet size and mix vehicle routing problem with time windows (F) and the heterogeneous fixed fleet vehicle routing problem with time windows (H), where the latter, in contrast to the former, assumes a limited availability of vehicles. The main objective is to minimize the fixed vehicle cost and the distribution cost, where the latter can be defined with respect to en-route time (T) or distance (D). The proposed unified algorithm is able to solve the four variants of heterogeneous fleet routing problem, called FT, FD, HT and HD, where the last variant is new. The HEA successfully combines several metaheuristics and offers a number of new advanced efficient procedures tailored to handle the heterogeneous fleet dimension. Extensive computational experiments on benchmark instances have shown that the HEA is highly effective on FT, FD and HT. In particular, out of the 360 instances we obtained 75 new best solutions and matched 102 within reasonable computational times. New benchmark results on HD are also presented.     

时变路网下带混合时间窗的车辆路径问题

针对时变路网下带混合时间窗的车辆路径问题,综合考虑多中心联合配送、混合时间窗、车辆行驶速度连续变化及车辆行驶速度、载重量对油耗的影响,以车辆派遣成本、油耗成本及时间窗惩罚成本之和最小为目标建立优化模型,并设计自适应遗传-大邻域搜索算法对其进行求解。该算法采用自适应交叉、变异以加快种群寻优速度,并引入时差插入法改进交叉算子和变异算子,嵌入移除算子和插入算子对可行解进行摧毁和重建以增加种群的多样性。通过多组算例验证算法的有效性,并分析了混合时间窗客户的比例变化及车辆行驶速度变化对车辆调度方案的影响,结果表明自适应遗传-大邻域搜索算法较基本算法有着更好的求解性能。该研究成果可丰富车辆路径问题的相关研究,为物流企业优化决策配送方案提供理论依据。     

The multi-depot split delivery vehicle routing problem: An integer programming-based heuristic, new test problems, and computational results

The multi-depot split delivery vehicle routing problem combines the split delivery vehicle routing problem and the multiple depot vehicle routing problem. We define this new problem and develop an integer programming-based heuristic for it. We apply our heuristic to 30 instances to determine the reduction in distance traveled that can be achieved by allowing split deliveries among vehicles based at the same depot and vehicles based at different depots. We generate new test instances with high-quality, visually estimated solutions and report results on these instances.     

A two-phase metaheuristic for the cumulative capacitated vehicle routing problem

The cumulative capacitated vehicle routing problem, which aims to minimize the total arrival time at customers, is a relatively new variant of vehicle routing problem. It can be used to model many real-world applications, e.g., the important application arisen from the humanitarian aid after a natural disaster. In this paper, an approach, called two-phase metaheuristic, is proposed to deal with this problem. This algorithm starts from a solution. At each iteration, two interdependent phases use different perturbation and local search operators for solution improvement. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is empirically investigated. The comparison results show that the proposed algorithm is promising. Moreover, for nine benchmark instances, the two-phase metaheuristic can find better solutions than those reported in the previous literature.     

基于混合算法的带时间窗的车辆路径问题求解

建立了有时间窗车辆路径问题的数学模型，针对遗传算法在局部搜索能力方面的不足，提出将模拟退火算法与遗传算法相结合，从而构造了有时间窗车辆路径问题的混合遗传算法，并进行了实验计算。结果表明，用混合遗传算法求解该优化问题，可以在一定程度上克服遗传算法在局部搜索能力方面的不足和模拟退火算法在全局搜索能力方面的不足，从而得到了质量较高的解。