The Heterogeneous Routing problem with stochastic demand and client priority solving by clustering genetic algorithm

The Heterogeneous Fleet Vehicle Routing Problem (HVRP) is a variant of the classical Vehicle Routing Problem in which customers are served by a heterogeneous fleet of vehicles with various capacities, fixed and variable costs. Due to its complexity, there’s no exact algorithm for this problem. A new scheme based on a clustering genetic algorithm heuristic for the HVRP is proposed in five steps. This study considers, in one hand, a version of the vehicle routing problem with fixed cost only with priority of client, and the customer demands are random variables, in the other hand. Computational experience with the benchmark test instances confirms that our approach produces acceptable quality solutions both in terms of the generate solutions and the processing time for this new problem.