Solving vehicle routing problems with asymmetric costs and heterogeneous fleets

[EN] The vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a flourishing research area with clear applications to real-life distribution companies. However, most VRP-related academic articles assume the existence of a homogeneous fleet of vehicles and/or a symmetric cost matrix. These assumptions are not always reas...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Herrero, Rosa, Cáceres-Cruz, José, Rodríguez Villalobos, Alejandro|||0000-0003-1079-6121, Juan, Angel A.|||0000-0003-1392-1776
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Repositorio:RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:riunet.upv.es:10251/37617
Acceso en línea:https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/37617
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Real-life
Vehicle
Routing problem
Heterogeneous fleets
Asymmetric costs
Randomised algorithms
ORGANIZACION DE EMPRESAS
Descripción
Sumario:[EN] The vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a flourishing research area with clear applications to real-life distribution companies. However, most VRP-related academic articles assume the existence of a homogeneous fleet of vehicles and/or a symmetric cost matrix. These assumptions are not always reasonable in real-life scenarios. To contribute in closing this gap between theory and practice, we propose a hybrid methodology for solving the asymmetric and heterogeneous vehicle routing problem (AHVRP). In our approach, we consider: 1) different types of vehicle loading capacities (heterogeneous fleets); 2) asymmetric distance-based costs. The proposed approach combines a randomised version of a well-known savings heuristic with several local searches specifically adapted to deal with the asymmetric nature of costs. A computational experiment allows us to discuss the efficiency of our approach and also to analyse how routing costs vary when slight departures from the homogeneous fleet assumption are considered.