Investigating the use of metaheuristics for solving single vehicle routing problems with time-varying traversal costs

Metaheuristic algorithms, such as simulated annealing and tabu search, are popular solution techniques for vehicle routing problems (VRPs). These approaches rely on iterative improvements to a starting solution, involving slight alterations to the routes (ie, neighbourhood moves), moving a node to a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of the Operational Research Society 2013-01, Vol.64 (1), p.34-47
Main Authors: Harwood, K, Mumford, C, Eglese, R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
2-Opt
Accuracy
Algorithms
Business and Management
congestion
Costs
Customers
Estimate reliability
Estimation methods
General Paper
General Papers
Heuristic
Heuristics
Management
Meta-analysis
Neighborhoods
Operations research
Operations Research/Decision Theory
Quadrants
Road Timetable
Routing
Run time
Speed
Studies
time varying
Traffic congestion
Travel time
vehicle routing
Vehicles
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Summary:Metaheuristic algorithms, such as simulated annealing and tabu search, are popular solution techniques for vehicle routing problems (VRPs). These approaches rely on iterative improvements to a starting solution, involving slight alterations to the routes (ie, neighbourhood moves), moving a node to a different part of a solution, swapping nodes or inverting sections of a tour, for example. When working with standard VRPs, where the costs of the arcs do not vary with advancing time, evaluating changes to the total cost following a neighbourhood move is a simple process: simply subtract the cost of the links removed from the solution and add the costs for the new links. When a time-varying aspect (eg, congestion) is included in the costs, these calculations become estimations rather than exact values. This paper focuses on a single vehicle routing problem, similar to the Travelling Salesman Problem, and investigates the potential for using estimation methods on simple models with time-variant costs, mimicking the effects of road congestion.
ISSN:0160-5682
1476-9360
DOI:10.1057/jors.2012.17