GVNS for a real-world rich vehicle routing problem with time windows

Rich Vehicle Routing Problems are vehicle routing problems (VRPs) that deal with additional constraints, which aim to better take into account the particularities of real-world applications. They combine multiple attributes, which constitute a complement to the traditional models. This work proposes...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: De Armas, Jésica, Melián-Batista, Belén, Moreno-Pérez, José A., Brito, Julio
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:España
Recursos:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Repositorio:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
OAI Identifier:oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/59077
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/59077
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engappai.2015.03.009
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Rich VRPTW
Fixed heterogeneous fleet
General variable neighbourhood search
Metaheuristics
Descrição
Resumo:Rich Vehicle Routing Problems are vehicle routing problems (VRPs) that deal with additional constraints, which aim to better take into account the particularities of real-world applications. They combine multiple attributes, which constitute a complement to the traditional models. This work proposes an adaptive solution method based on metaheuristics for solving a Rich Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows. This software has been embedded into the fleet management system of a company in the Canary Islands. The attributes considered by the company are a fixed heterogeneous fleet of vehicles, soft and multiple time windows, customer priorities and vehicle–customer constraints. Furthermore, the company requires the consideration of several objective functions that include travelled distance and time/distance balance. Exact algorithms are not applicable when solving real-life large VRP instances. This work presents a General Variable Neighbourhood Search metaheuristic, which obtains high quality solutions. The computational experiments are presented in four sections, which comprise the parameter setting, the analysis of the effect of the considered attributes, the comparative with the literature for the standard VRP with Time Windows, and the study of the solutions provided by the algorithm when compared with the solutions implemented by the company.