Genetic Crossover Operators for the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem

We study the capacitated vehicle routing problem(CVRP)which is a well-known NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem(COP).The aim of the problem is to serve different customers by a convoy of vehicles starting from a depot so that sum of the routing costs under their capacity constraints is minimized.Since the problem is very complicated,solving the problem using exact methods is almost impossible.So,one has to go for the heuristic/metaheuristic methods and genetic algorithm(GA)is broadly applied metaheuristic method to obtain near optimal solution to such COPs.So,this paper studies GAs to find solution to the problem.Generally,to solve a COP,GAs start with a chromosome set named initial population,and then mainly three operators-selection,crossover andmutation,are applied.Among these three operators,crossover is very crucial in designing and implementing GAs,and hence,numerous crossover operators were developed and applied to different COPs.There are two major kinds of crossover operators-blind crossovers and distance-based crossovers.We intend to compare the performance of four blind crossover and four distance-based crossover operators to test the suitability of the operators to solve the CVRP.These operators were originally proposed for the standard travelling salesman problem(TSP).First,these eight crossovers are illustrated using same parent chromosomes for building offspring(s).Then eight GAs using these eight crossover operators without any mutation operator and another eight GAs using these eight crossover operators with a mutation operator are developed.These GAs are experimented on some benchmark asymmetric and symmetric instances of numerous sizes and various number of vehicles.Our study revealed that the distance-based crossovers are much superior to the blind crossovers.Further,we observed that the sequential constructive crossover with and without mutation operator is the best one for theCVRP.This estimation is validated by Student’s t-test at 95%confidence level.We further determined a comparative rank of the eight crossovers for the CVRP.

Efficient Network Selection Using Multi-Depot Routing Problem for Smart Cities

Smart cities make use of a variety of smart technology to improve societies in better ways.Such intelligent technologies,on the other hand,pose sig-nificant concerns in terms of power usage and emission of carbons.The suggested study is focused on technological networks for big data-driven systems.With the support of software-defined technologies,a transportation-aided multicast routing system is suggested.By using public transportation as another communication platform in a smart city,network communication is enhanced.The primary objec-tive is to use as little energy as possible while delivering as much data as possible.The Attribute Decision Making with Capacitated Vehicle(CV)Routing Problem(RP)and Half Open Multi-Depot Heterogeneous Vehicle Routing Problem is used in the proposed research.For the optimum network selection,a Multi-Attribute Decision Making(MADM)method is utilized.For the sake of reducing energy usage,the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem(CVRP)is employed.To reduce the transportation cost and risk,Half Open Multi-Depot Heterogeneous Vehicle Routing Problem is used.Moreover,a mixed-integer programming approach is used to deal with the problem.To produce Pareto optimal solutions,an intelligent algorithm based on the epsilon constraint approach and genetic algorithm is cre-ated.A scenario of Auckland Transport is being used to validate the concept of offloading the information onto the buses for energy-efficient and delay-tolerant data transfer.Therefore the experiments have demonstrated that the buses may be used effectively to carry out the data by customer requests while using 30%of less energy than the other systems.

New Hybrid Algorithm Based on BicriterionAnt for Solving Multiobjective Green Vehicle Routing Problem

The main objective of this paper is to propose a new hybrid algorithm for solving the Bi objective green vehicle routing problem (BGVRP) from the BicriterionAnt metaheuristic. The methodology used is subdivided as follows: first, we introduce data from the GVRP or instances from the literature. Second, we use the first cluster route second technique using the k-means algorithm, then we apply the BicriterionAntAPE (BicriterionAnt Adjacent Pairwise Exchange) algorithm to each cluster obtained. And finally, we make a comparative analysis of the results obtained by the case study as well as instances from the literature with some existing metaheuristics NSGA, SPEA, BicriterionAnt in order to see the performance of the new hybrid algorithm. The results show that the routes which minimize the total distance traveled by the vehicles are different from those which minimize the CO2 pollution, which can be understood by the fact that the objectives are conflicting. In this study, we also find that the optimal route reduces product CO2 by almost 7.2% compared to the worst route.

Improved ant colony optimization for multi-depot heterogeneous vehicle routing problem with soft time windows

Considering that the vehicle routing problem （VRP） with many extended features is widely used in actual life, such as multi-depot, heterogeneous types of vehicles, customer service priority and time windows etc., a mathematical model for multi-depot heterogeneous vehicle routing problem with soft time windows （MDHVRPSTW） is established. An improved ant colony optimization （IACO） is proposed for solving this model. First, MDHVRPSTW is transferred into different groups according to the nearest principle, and then the initial route is constructed by the scanning algorithm （SA）. Secondly, genetic operators are introduced, and crossover probability and mutation probability are adaptively adjusted in order to improve the global search ability of the algorithm. Moreover, the smooth mechanism is used to improve the performance of the ant colony optimization （ACO）. Finally, the 3-opt strategy is used to improve the local search ability. The proposed IACO was tested on three new instances that were generated randomly. The experimental results show that IACO is superior to the other three existing algorithms in terms of convergence speed and solution quality. Thus, the proposed method is effective and feasible, and the proposed model is meaningful.

An improved estimation of distribution algorithm for multi-compartment electric vehicle routing problem

The multi-compartment electric vehicle routing problem(EVRP)with soft time window and multiple charging types(MCEVRP-STW&MCT)is studied,in which electric multi-compartment vehicles that are environmentally friendly but need to be recharged in course of transport process,are employed.A mathematical model for this optimization problem is established with the objective of minimizing the function composed of vehicle cost,distribution cost,time window penalty cost and charging service cost.To solve the problem,an estimation of the distribution algorithm based on Lévy flight(EDA-LF)is proposed to perform a local search at each iteration to prevent the algorithm from falling into local optimum.Experimental results demonstrate that the EDA-LF algorithm can find better solutions and has stronger robustness than the basic EDA algorithm.In addition,when comparing with existing algorithms,the result shows that the EDA-LF can often get better solutions in a relatively short time when solving medium and large-scale instances.Further experiments show that using electric multi-compartment vehicles to deliver incompatible products can produce better results than using traditional fuel vehicles.

Hybrid discrete particle swarm optimization algorithm for capacitated vehicle routing problem

Capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) is an NP-hard problem. For large-scale problems, it is quite difficult to achieve an optimal solution with traditional optimization methods due to the high computational complexity. A new hybrid ap- proximation algorithm is developed in this work to solve the problem. In the hybrid algorithm, discrete particle swarm optimiza- tion (DPSO) combines global search and local search to search for the optimal results and simulated annealing (SA) uses certain probability to avoid being trapped in a local optimum. The computational study showed that the proposed algorithm is a feasible and effective approach for capacitated vehicle routing problem, especially for large scale problems.

Multi-type ant system algorithm for the time dependent vehicle routing problem with time windows

The time dependent vehicle routing problem with time windows（TDVRPTW） is considered. A multi-type ant system（MTAS） algorithm hybridized with the ant colony system（ACS）and the max-min ant system（MMAS） algorithms is proposed. This combination absorbs the merits of the two algorithms in solutions construction and optimization separately. In order to improve the efficiency of the insertion procedure, a nearest neighbor selection（NNS） mechanism, an insertion local search procedure and a local optimization procedure are specified in detail. And in order to find a balance between good scouting performance and fast convergence rate, an adaptive pheromone updating strategy is proposed in the MTAS. Computational results confirm the MTAS algorithm＇s good performance with all these strategies on classic vehicle routing problem with time windows（VRPTW） benchmark instances and the TDVRPTW instances, and some better results especially for the number of vehicles and travel times of the best solutions are obtained in comparison with the previous research.

Solving material distribution routing problem in mixed manufacturing systems with a hybrid multi-objective evolutionary algorithm

The material distribution routing problem in the manufacturing system is a complex combinatorial optimization problem and its main task is to deliver materials to the working stations with low cost and high efficiency. A multi-objective model was presented for the material distribution routing problem in mixed manufacturing systems, and it was solved by a hybrid multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (HMOEA). The characteristics of the HMOEA are as follows: 1) A route pool is employed to preserve the best routes for the population initiation; 2) A specialized best?worst route crossover (BWRC) mode is designed to perform the crossover operators for selecting the best route from Chromosomes 1 to exchange with the worst one in Chromosomes 2, so that the better genes are inherited to the offspring; 3) A route swap mode is used to perform the mutation for improving the convergence speed and preserving the better gene; 4) Local heuristics search methods are applied in this algorithm. Computational study of a practical case shows that the proposed algorithm can decrease the total travel distance by 51.66%, enhance the average vehicle load rate by 37.85%, cut down 15 routes and reduce a deliver vehicle. The convergence speed of HMOEA is faster than that of famous NSGA-II.

An Overview and Experimental Study of Learning-Based Optimization Algorithms for the Vehicle Routing Problem

The vehicle routing problem(VRP)is a typical discrete combinatorial optimization problem,and many models and algorithms have been proposed to solve the VRP and its variants.Although existing approaches have contributed significantly to the development of this field,these approaches either are limited in problem size or need manual intervention in choosing parameters.To solve these difficulties,many studies have considered learning-based optimization(LBO)algorithms to solve the VRP.This paper reviews recent advances in this field and divides relevant approaches into end-to-end approaches and step-by-step approaches.We performed a statistical analysis of the reviewed articles from various aspects and designed three experiments to evaluate the performance of four representative LBO algorithms.Finally,we conclude the applicable types of problems for different LBO algorithms and suggest directions in which researchers can improve LBO algorithms.

GREEDY NON-DOMINATED SORTING IN GENETIC ALGORITHM-ⅡFOR VEHICLE ROUTING PROBLEM IN DISTRIBUTION

Vehicle routing problem in distribution （VRPD） is a widely used type of vehicle routing problem （VRP）, which has been proved as NP-Hard, and it is usually modeled as single objective optimization problem when modeling. For multi-objective optimization model, most researches consider two objectives. A multi-objective mathematical model for VRP is proposed, which considers the number of vehicles used, the length of route and the time arrived at each client. Genetic algorithm is one of the most widely used algorithms to solve VRP. As a type of genetic algorithm （GA）, non-dominated sorting in genetic algorithm-Ⅱ （NSGA-Ⅱ） also suffers from premature convergence and enclosure competition. In order to avoid these kinds of shortage, a greedy NSGA-Ⅱ （GNSGA-Ⅱ） is proposed for VRP problem. Greedy algorithm is implemented in generating the initial population, cross-over and mutation. All these procedures ensure that NSGA-Ⅱ is prevented from premature convergence and refine the performance of NSGA-Ⅱ at each step. In the distribution problem of a distribution center in Michigan, US, the GNSGA-Ⅱ is compared with NSGA-Ⅱ. As a result, the GNSGA-Ⅱ is the most efficient one and can get the most optimized solution to VRP problem. Also, in GNSGA-Ⅱ, premature convergence is better avoided and search efficiency has been improved sharply.

A GA approach to vehicle routing problem with time windows considering loading constraints

As a new variant of vehicle routing problem( VRP),a finished vehicle routing problem with time windows in finished vehicle logistics( FVRPTW) is modeled and solved. An optimization model for FVRPTW is presented with the objective of scheduling multiple transport routes considering loading constraints along with time penalty function to minimize the total cost. Then a genetic algorithm( GA) is developed. The specific encoding and genetic operators for FVRPTW are devised.Especially,in order to accelerate its convergence,an improved termination condition is given. Finally,a case study is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and a series of experiments are conducted over a set of finished vehicle routing problems. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach has superior performance and satisfies users in practice. Contributions of the study are the modeling and solving of a complex FVRPTW in logistics industry.

Research on Vehicle Routing Problem with Soft Time Windows Based on Hybrid Tabu Search and Scatter Search Algorithm

With the expansion of the application scope of social computing problems,many path problems in real life have evolved from pure path optimization problems to social computing problems that take into account various social attributes,cultures,and the emotional needs of customers.The actual soft time window vehicle routing problem,speeding up the response of customer needs,improving distribution efficiency,and reducing operating costs is the focus of current social computing problems.Therefore,designing fast and effective algorithms to solve this problem has certain theoretical and practical significance.In this paper,considering the time delay problem of customer demand,the compensation problem is given,and the mathematical model of vehicle path problem with soft time window is given.This paper proposes a hybrid tabu search(TS)&scatter search(SS)algorithm for vehicle routing problem with soft time windows(VRPSTW),which mainly embeds the TS dynamic tabu mechanism into the SS algorithm framework.TS uses the scattering of SS to avoid the dependence on the quality of the initial solution,and SS uses the climbing ability of TS improves the ability of optimizing,so that the quality of search for the optimal solution can be significantly improved.The hybrid algorithm is still based on the basic framework of SS.In particular,TS is mainly used for solution improvement and combination to generate new solutions.In the solution process,both the quality and the dispersion of the solution are considered.A simulation experiments verify the influence of the number of vehicles and maximum value of tabu length on solution,parameters’control over the degree of convergence,and the influence of the number of diverse solutions on algorithm performance.Based on the determined parameters,simulation experiment is carried out in this paper to further prove the algorithm feasibility and effectiveness.The results of this paper provide further ideas for solving vehicle routing problems with time windows and improving the efficiency of vehicle routing problems and have strong applicability.

Models for Location Inventory Routing Problem of Cold Chain Logistics with NSGA-Ⅱ Algorithm

In this paper,a novel location inventory routing(LIR)model is proposed to solve cold chain logistics network problem under uncertain demand environment. The goal of the developed model is to optimize costs of location,inventory and transportation.Due to the complex of LIR problem( LIRP), a multi-objective genetic algorithm(GA), non-dominated sorting in genetic algorithm Ⅱ( NSGA-Ⅱ) has been introduced. Its performance is tested over a real case for the proposed problems. Results indicate that NSGA-Ⅱ provides a competitive performance than GA,which demonstrates that the proposed model and multi-objective GA are considerably efficient to solve the problem.

An Alternative Algorithm for Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows for Daily Deliveries

This study attempts to solve vehicle routing problem with time window (VRPTW). The study first identifies the real problems and suggests some recommendations on the issues. The technique used in this study is Genetic Algorithm (GA) and initialization applied is random population method. The objective of the study is to assign a number of vehicles to routes that connect customers and depot such that the overall distance travelled is minimized and the delivery operations are completed within the time windows requested by the customers. The analysis reveals that the problems experienced in vehicle routing with time window can be solved by GA and retrieved for optimal solutions. After a thorough study on VRPTW, it is highly recommended that a company should implement the optimal routes derived from the study to increase the efficiency and accuracy of delivery with time insertion.

Study on the Inventory Routing Problem of Refined Oil Distribution Based on Working Time Equilibrium

Taking the distribution route optimization of refined oil as background, this paper studies the inventory routing problem of refined oil distribution based on working time equilibrium. In consideration of the constraints of vehicle capacity, time window for unloading oil, service time and demand of each gas station, we take the working time equilibrium of each vehicle as goal and establish an integer programming model for the vehicle routing problem of refined oil distribution, the objective function of the model is to minimize the maximum working time of vehicles. To solve this model, a Lingo program was written and a heuristic algorithm was designed. We further use the random generation method to produce an example with 10 gas stations. The local optimal solution and approximate optimal solution are obtained by using Lingo software and heuristic algorithm respectively. By comparing the approximate optimal solution obtained by heuristic algorithm with the local optimal solution obtained by Lingo software, the feasibility of the model and the effectiveness of the heuristic algorithm are verified. The results of this paper provide a theoretical basis for the scheduling department to formulate the oil distribution plan.

Vehicle routing problem with time-varying speed

Vehicle routing problem with time-varying speed ( VRPTS) is a generalization of vehicle routing problem in which the travel speed between two locations depends on the passing areas and the time of a day. This paper proposes a simple model for estimating time-varying travel speeds in VRPTS that relieves much burden to the data-related problems. The study further presents three heuristics ( saving technique,proximity priority searching technique,and insertion technique) for VRPTS,developed by extending and modifying the existing heuristics for conventional VRP. The results of computational experiments demonstrate that the proposed estimation model performs well and the saving technique is the best among the three heuristics.

A Hybrid TCNN Optimization Approach for the Capacity Vehicle Routing Problem

A novel approximation algorithm was proposed for the problem of finding the minimum total cost of all routes in Capacity Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP). CVRP can be partitioned into three parts: the selection of vehicles among the available vehicles, the initial routing of the selected fleet and the routing optimization. Fuzzy C-means (FCM) can group the customers with close Euclidean distance into the same vehicle according to the principle of similar feature partition. Transiently chaotic neural network (TCNN) combines local search and global search, possessing high search efficiency. It will solve the routes to near optimality. A simple tabu search (TS) procedure can improve the routes to more optimality. The computations on benchmark problems and comparisons with other results in literatures show that the proposed algorithm is a viable and effective approach for CVRP.

A novel genetic algorithm for vehicle routing problem with time windows

A novel genetic algorithm with multiple species in dynamic region is proposed,each of which occupies a dynamic region determined by the weight vector of a fuzzy adaptive Hamming neural network. Through learning and classification of genetic individuals in the evolutionary procedure,the neural network distributes multiple species into different regions of the search space. Furthermore,the neural network dynamically expands each search region or establishes new region for good offspring individuals to continuously keep the diversification of the genetic population. As a result,the premature problem inherent in genetic algorithm is alleviated and better tradeoff between the ability of exploration and exploitation can be obtained. The experimental results on the vehicle routing problem with time windows also show the good performance of the proposed genetic algorithm.

An Effective Hybrid Optimization Algorithm for Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem

Capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) is an important combinatorial optimization problem. However, it is quite difficult to achieve an optimal solution with the traditional optimization methods owing to the high computational complexity. A hybrid algorithm was developed to solve the problem, in which an artificial immune clonal algorithm (AICA) makes use of the global search ability to search the optimal results and simulated annealing (SA) algorithm employs certain probability to avoid becoming trapped in a local optimum. The results obtained from the computational study show that the proposed algorithm is a feasible and effective method for capacitated vehicle routing problem.

Intelligent Iterated Local Search Methods for Solving Vehicle Routing Problem with Different Fleets

To solve vehicle routing problem with different fleets, two methodologies are developed. The first methodology adopts twophase strategy. In the first phase, the improved savings method is used to assign customers to appropriate vehicles. In the second phase, the iterated dynasearch algorithm is adopted to route each selected vehicle with the assigned customers. The iterated dynasearch algorithm combines dynasearch algorithm with iterated local search algorithm based on random kicks. The second methodplogy adopts the idea of cyclic transfer which is performed by using dynamic programming algorithm, and the iterated dynasearch algorithm is also embedded in it. The test results show that both methodologies generate better solutions than the traditional method, and the second methodology is superior to the first one.