|
Two-Phase Heuristic for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time WindowsKeywords: Metaheuristics , Vehicle routing problem , Time windows , Tabu search , Combinatorial optimization Abstract: The subject of the paper is a complete solution for the vehicle routing problemwith time windows, an industrial realization of an NP hard combinatorial optimizationproblem. The primary objective –the minimization of the number of routes- is aimed in thefirst phase, the secondary objective –the travel distance minimization- is going to berealized in the second phase by tabu search. The initial route construction applies aprobability density function for seed selection. Guided Route Elimination procedure wasalso developed. The solution was tested on the Solomon Problem Set and seems to be verycompeitive with the best heuristics published in the latest years (2003-2005).
|