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A Two-Stage Hybrid Local Search for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

Author

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  • Russell Bent

    (Brown University, Box 1910, Providence, Rhode Island 02912)

  • Pascal Van Hentenryck

    (Brown University, Box 1910, Providence, Rhode Island 02912)

Abstract

The vehicle routing problem with time windows is a hard combinatorial optimization problem that has received considerable attention in the last decades. This paper proposes a two-stage hybrid algorithm for this transportation problem. The algorithm first minimizes the number of vehicles, using simulated annealing. It then minimizes travel cost by using a large neighborhood search that may relocate a large number of customers. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm, which has improved 10 (17%) of the 56 best published solutions to the Solomon benchmarks, while matching or improving the best solutions in 46 problems (82%). More important perhaps, the algorithm is shown to be very robust. With a fixed configuration of its parameters, it returns either the best published solutions (or improvements thereof) or solutions very close in quality on all Solomon benchmarks. Very preliminary results on the extended Solomon benchmarks are also given.

Suggested Citation

  • Russell Bent & Pascal Van Hentenryck, 2004. "A Two-Stage Hybrid Local Search for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(4), pages 515-530, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:38:y:2004:i:4:p:515-530
    DOI: 10.1287/trsc.1030.0049
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    References listed on IDEAS

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