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Solving the Green Open Vehicle Routing Problem Using a Membrane-Inspired Hybrid Algorithm

Author

Listed:
  • Yunyun Niu

    (School of Information Engineering, China University of Geosciences in Beijing, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Zehua Yang

    (School of Information Engineering, China University of Geosciences in Beijing, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Rong Wen

    (Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, Singapore 138634, Singapore)

  • Jianhua Xiao

    (The Research Center of Logistics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China)

  • Shuai Zhang

    (DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4M4, Canada)

Abstract

The green open vehicle routing problem with time windows has been widely studied to plan routes with minimal emissions in third-party logistics. Due to the NP-hardness, the performance of the general heuristics significantly degrades when dealing with large-scale instances. In this paper, we propose a membrane-inspired hybrid algorithm to solve the problem. The proposed algorithm has a three-level structure of cell-like nested membranes, where tabu search, genetic operators, and neighbourhood search are incorporated. In particular, the elementary membranes (level-3) provide extra attractors to the tabu search in their adjacent level-2 membranes. The genetic algorithm in the skin membrane (level-1) is designed to retain the desirable gene segments of tentative solutions, especially using its crossover operator. The tabu search in the level-2 membranes helps the genetic algorithm circumvent the local optimum. Two sets of real-life instances, one of a Chinese logistics company, Jingdong, and the other of Beijing city, are tested to evaluate our method. The experimental results reveal that the proposed algorithm is considerably superior to the baselines for solving the large-scale green open vehicle routing problem with time windows.

Suggested Citation

  • Yunyun Niu & Zehua Yang & Rong Wen & Jianhua Xiao & Shuai Zhang, 2022. "Solving the Green Open Vehicle Routing Problem Using a Membrane-Inspired Hybrid Algorithm," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-22, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:14:p:8661-:d:863440
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Yan Li & Xiao Xu & Fuyu Wang, 2023. "Research on Home Health Care Scheduling Considering Synchronous Access of Caregivers and Vehicles," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-18, April.

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