scholarly journals On the Use of Learnheuristics in Vehicle Routing Optimization Problems with Dynamic Inputs

Algorithms ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quim Arnau ◽  
Angel Juan ◽  
Isabel Serra

Freight transportation is becoming an increasingly critical activity for enterprises in a global world. Moreover, the distribution activities have a non-negligible impact on the environment, as well as on the citizens’ welfare. The classical vehicle routing problem (VRP) aims at designing routes that minimize the cost of serving customers using a given set of capacitated vehicles. Some VRP variants consider traveling times, either in the objective function (e.g., including the goal of minimizing total traveling time or designing balanced routes) or as constraints (e.g., the setting of time windows or a maximum time per route). Typically, the traveling time between two customers or between one customer and the depot is assumed to be both known in advance and static. However, in real life, there are plenty of factors (predictable or not) that may affect these traveling times, e.g., traffic jams, accidents, road works, or even the weather. In this work, we analyze the VRP with dynamic traveling times. Our work assumes not only that these inputs are dynamic in nature, but also that they are a function of the structure of the emerging routing plan. In other words, these traveling times need to be dynamically re-evaluated as the solution is being constructed. In order to solve this dynamic optimization problem, a learnheuristic-based approach is proposed. Our approach integrates statistical learning techniques within a metaheuristic framework. A number of computational experiments are carried out in order to illustrate our approach and discuss its effectiveness.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 10933
Author(s):  
Radosław Belka ◽  
Mateusz Godlewski

Solving the vehicle routing problem (VRP) is one of the best-known optimization issues in the TLS (transport, logistic, spedition) branch market. Various variants of the VRP problem have been presented and discussed in the literature for many years. In most cases, batch versions of the problem are considered, wherein the complete data, including customers’ geographical distribution, is well known. In real-life situations, the data change dynamically, which influences the decisions made by optimization systems. The article focuses on the aspect of geopositioning updates and their impact on the effectiveness of optimization algorithms. Such updates affect the distance matrix, one of the critical datasets used to optimize the VRP problem. A demonstration version of the optimization system was developed, wherein updates are carried out in integration with both open source routing machine and GPS tracking services. In the case of a dynamically changing list of destinations, continuous and effective updates are required. Firstly, temporary values of the distance matrix based on the correction of the quasi-Euclidean distance were generated. Next, the impact of update progress on the proposed optimization algorithms was investigated. The simulation results were compared with the results obtained “manually” by experienced planners. It was found that the upload level of the distance matrix influences the optimization effectiveness in a non-deterministic way. It was concluded that updating data should start from the smallest values in the distance matrix.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Mohammed Hassan Hassan ◽  
Laina Makdyssiian ◽  
Waseem Habib Bilal

In this research, we are studying the possibility of contribution in solving the multi-objective vehicle Routing problem with time windows, that is one of the optimization problems of the NP-hard type, This problem has attracted a lot of attention now because of its real life applications.Moreover, We will also introduce an algorithm called Hybrid Algorithm (HA) which depends on integrates between Multiple Objective Ant Colony Optimisation (MOACO) and Tabu Search (TS) algorithm based on the Pareto optimization, and compare the presented approach is the developer with standard tests to demonstrate the applicability and efficiency.


Author(s):  
Fatma Demircan Keskin

This chapter addresses vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW), one of the most well-known combinatorial optimization problems with many real-world applications in the transportation sector. This chapter proposes a three-stage approach for VRPTW and presents an application of this approach to a real-life problem. The stages of the approach include clustering of customers, determining feasible routes and their criteria values for each cluster, and selecting the best routes for each cluster based on multi-criteria decision analysis. In the first stage of the proposed approach, a fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering-based assignment algorithm is used. The second stage includes predicting travel times between nodes based on GPS data with support vector regression (SVR) and applying the proposed feasible route determination and criteria value calculation algorithm using these predictions and other inputs. In the last stage, routes are selected with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) for each cluster.


Author(s):  
Kaixian Gao ◽  
Guohua Yang ◽  
Xiaobo Sun

With the rapid development of the logistics industry, the demand of customer become higher and higher. The timeliness of distribution becomes one of the important factors that directly affect the profit and customer satisfaction of the enterprise. If the distribution route is planned rationally, the cost can be greatly reduced and the customer satisfaction can be improved. Aiming at the routing problem of A company’s vehicle distribution link, we establish mathematical models based on theory and practice. According to the characteristics of the model, genetic algorithm is selected as the algorithm of path optimization. At the same time, we simulate the actual situation of a company, and use genetic algorithm to plan the calculus. By contrast, the genetic algorithm suitable for solving complex optimization problems, the practicability of genetic algorithm in this design is highlighted. It solves the problem of unreasonable transportation of A company, so as to get faster efficiency and lower cost.


2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 1043-1066 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Munari ◽  
Alfredo Moreno ◽  
Jonathan De La Vega ◽  
Douglas Alem ◽  
Jacek Gondzio ◽  
...  

We address the robust vehicle routing problem with time windows (RVRPTW) under customer demand and travel time uncertainties. As presented thus far in the literature, robust counterparts of standard formulations have challenged general-purpose optimization solvers and specialized branch-and-cut methods. Hence, optimal solutions have been reported for small-scale instances only. Additionally, although the most successful methods for solving many variants of vehicle routing problems are based on the column generation technique, the RVRPTW has never been addressed by this type of method. In this paper, we introduce a novel robust counterpart model based on the well-known budgeted uncertainty set, which has advantageous features in comparison with other formulations and presents better overall performance when solved by commercial solvers. This model results from incorporating dynamic programming recursive equations into a standard deterministic formulation and does not require the classical dualization scheme typically used in robust optimization. In addition, we propose a branch-price-and-cut method based on a set partitioning formulation of the problem, which relies on a robust resource-constrained elementary shortest path problem to generate routes that are robust regarding both vehicle capacity and customer time windows. Computational experiments using Solomon’s instances show that the proposed approach is effective and able to obtain robust solutions within a reasonable running time. The results of an extensive Monte Carlo simulation indicate the relevance of obtaining robust routes for a more reliable decision-making process in real-life settings.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lahcene Guezouli ◽  
Mohamed Bensakhria ◽  
Samir Abdelhamid

In this article, the authors propose a decision support system which aims to optimize the classical Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem by considering the existence of multiple available depots and a time window which must not be violated, that they call the Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Window (MDVRPTW), and with respecting a set of criteria including: schedules requests from clients, the capacity of vehicles. The authors solve this problem by proposing a recently published technique based on soccer concepts, called Golden Ball (GB), with different solution representation from the original one, this technique was designed to solve combinatorial optimization problems, and by embedding a clustering algorithm. Computational results have shown that the approach produces acceptable quality solutions compared to the best previous results in similar problem in terms of generated solutions and processing time. Experimental results prove that the proposed Golden Ball algorithm is efficient and effective to solve the MDVRPTW problem.


2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (06) ◽  
pp. 1550021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esam Taha Yassen ◽  
Masri Ayob ◽  
Mohd Zakree Ahmad Nazri ◽  
Nasser R. Sabar

Harmony search algorithm, which simulates the musical improvisation process in seeking agreeable harmony, is a population based meta-heuristics algorithm for solving optimization problems. Although it has been successfully applied on various optimization problems; it suffers the slow convergence problem, which greatly hinders its applicability for getting good quality solution. Therefore, in this work, we propose a hybrid meta-heuristic algorithm that hybridizes a harmony search with simulated annealing for the purpose of improving the performance of harmony search algorithm. Harmony search algorithm is used to explore the search spaces. Whilst, simulated annealing algorithm is used inside the harmony search algorithm to exploit the search space and further improve the solutions that are generated by harmony search algorithm. The performance of the proposed algorithm is tested using the Solomon's Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW) benchmark. Numerical results demonstrate that the hybrid approach is better than the harmony search without simulated annealing and the hybrid also proves itself to be more competent (if not better on some instances) when compared to other approaches in the literature.


2012 ◽  
Vol 468-471 ◽  
pp. 2047-2051 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ai Ling Chen

Vehicle routing optimization problem is one of the major research topics in logistics distribution field. Suitable vehicle routing selection is vital to reduce the logistics cost. The paper presents a hybrid optimization method to solve the vehicle routing problem with time windows. In the hybrid optimization method, discrete particle swarm optimization algorithm is used to assign the customers on routes and simulated annealing (SA) algorithm to avoid becoming trapped in local optimum. The simulation results have shown that the proposed method is feasible and effective for the vehicle routing problem with time windows.


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcin Woch ◽  
Piotr Łebkowski

This article presents a new simulated annealing algorithm that provides very high quality solutions to the vehicle routing problem. The aim of described algorithm is to solve the vehicle routing problem with time windows. The tests were carried out with use of some well known instances of the problem defined by M. Solomon. The empirical evidence indicates that simulated annealing can be successfully applied to bi-criterion optimization problems.


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