Optimization of Multi-Depot Periodic Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Window

Logistics is one of today's most important industries. It is important to store and transport raw materials, products cost-effectively. The article presents a specific delivery task, the Multi-Depot Periodic Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Window. In case of the problem several customers must be visited and must satisfy their demands. The vehicles start their route from one of the several depots, visit some customers and return to the depot from which they started their route. The customers have time window, which means that they must be visited within a predefined time interval. The periodic keyword means that the customers must be visited not once, but periodically. This means, that a periodic time is given, and the number of visits of each customer within this periodic time are also known in advance. The goal is the minimization of the length of the route. This problem is solved in this paper with construction and improvement algorithms. The presented construction algorithms are the Nearest Neighbor, Insertion Heuristics and Greedy algorithm. The presented improvement algorithms are the Firefly Algorithm, Harmony Search, Particle Swarm Optimization, Simulated Annealing and Tabu Search algorithms. Based on the test results the improvement of construction algorithms gave better performance than improving randomly generated solutions.

@article{agardi2019optimization,
  title={OPTIMIZATION OF MULTI-DEPOT PERIODIC VEHICLE ROUTING PROBLEM WITH TIME WINDOW.},
  author={AG{'A}RDI, Anita and KOV{'A}CS, L{'a}szl{'o} and B{'A}NYAI, Tam{'a}s},
  journal={Academic Journal of Manufacturing Engineering},
  volume={17},
  number={4},
  year={2019}
}