CoBRA: A Coevolutionary Meta-heuristic for Bi-level Optimization

This article presents CoBRA, a new parallel coevolutionary algorithm for bi-level optimization. CoBRA is based on a coevolutionary scheme to solve bi-level optimization problems. It handles population-based meta-heuristics on each level, each one cooperating with the other to provide solutions for the overall problem. Moreover, in order to evaluate the relevance of CoBRA against more classical approaches, a new performance assessment methodology, based on rationality, is introduced. An experimental analysis is conducted on a bi-level distribution planning problem, where multiple manufacturing plants deliver items to depots, and where a distribution company controls several depots and distributes items from depots to retailers. The experimental results reveal significant enhancements with respect to a more classical approach, based on a hierarchical scheme.Cet article présente CoBRA, un nouvel algorithme paralléle et coévolutionnaire pour l'optimisation bi-niveau. CoBRA se base sur un modèle coévolutionnaire pour faire face aux problèmes d'optimisation bi-niveau. Il manipule une méta-heuristique à base de population sur chaque niveau, chacune coopérant avec l'autre de manière à garder une vue générale sur le problème complet. De plus, afin d'étudier la pertinence de CoBRA par rapport aux approches plus classique, une nouvelle méthodologie, basée sur la rationalité est introduite. Est conduite ensuite une étude expérimentale sur un problème bi-niveau de distribution-production, dans lequel des usines contrôlées par une entreprise produisent des marchandises pour des dépôts, et une autre entreprise contrôlant les dépôts se charge de livrer les marchandises à des clients. Cet article se conclut sur l'observation d'un réel gain de performance par rapport à une approche plus classique, basée sur un modèle hiérarchique

CoBRA: A cooperative coevolutionary algorithm for bi-level optimization

International audienceThis article presents CoBRA, a new evolutionary algorithm, based on a coevolutionary scheme, to solve bi-level optimization problems. It handles population-based algorithms on each level, each one cooperating with the other to provide solutions for the overall problem. Moreover, in order to evaluate the relevance of CoBRA against more classical approaches, a new performance assessment methodology, based on rationality, is introduced. An experimental analysis is conducted on a bi-level distribution planning problem, where multiple manufacturing plants deliver items to depots, and where a distribution company controls several depots and distributes items from depots to re- tailers. The experimental results reveal significant enhancements, particularly over the lower level, with respect to a more classical approach based on a hierarchical scheme

Survey on Ten Years of Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problems: Mathematical Models, Solution Methods and Real-Life Applications

A crucial practical issue encountered in logistics management is the circulation of final products from depots to end-user customers. When routing and scheduling systems are improved, they will not only improve customer satisfaction but also increase the capacity to serve a large number of customers minimizing time. On the assumption that there is only one depot, the key issue of distribution is generally identified and formulated as VRP standing for Vehicle Routing Problem. In case, a company having more than one depot, the suggested VRP is most unlikely to work out. In view of resolving this limitation and proposing alternatives, VRP with multiple depots and multi-depot MDVRP have been a focus of this paper. Carrying out a comprehensive analytical literature survey of past ten years on cost-effective Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing is the main aim of this research. Therefore, the current status of the MDVRP along with its future developments is reviewed at length in the paper

Hybrid 2-stage Imperialist Competitive Algorithm with Ant Colony Optimization for Solving Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem.

The Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem (MDVRP) is a real-world model of the simplistic Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) that considers how to satisfy multiple customer demands from numerous depots. This paper introduces a hybrid 2-stage approach based on two population-based algorithms - Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) that mimics ant behaviour in nature and the Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) that is based on geopolitical relationships between countries. In the proposed hybrid algorithm, ICA is responsible for customer assignment to the depots while ACO is routing and sequencing the customers. The algorithm is compared to non-hybrid ACO and ICA as well as four other state-of-the-art methods across 23 common Cordreaus benchmark instances. Results show clear improvement over simple ACO and ICA and demonstrate very competitive results when compared to other rival algorithms

Imperialist Competitive Algorithm with Independence and Constrained Assimilation

Autonomous Supply Chai

Two-step Meta-heuristic Approach for a Vehicle Assignment Problem – Case from İstanbul/Turkey

In this paper, a two-step meta-heuristic approach is proposed for vehicle assignment problem with geometric shape-based clustering and genetic algorithm. First, the geometric shape-based clustering method is used and then the solution of this method is given to the genetic algorithm as initial solution. The solution process is continued by genetic algorithm. There are 282 bus lines in İstanbul European side. Those buses should be assigned to six bus garages. The proposed method is used to determine the minimum distance between the bus lines and garages by assigning buses to garages. According to the computational results, the proposed algorithm has better clustering performance in terms of the distance from each bus-line start point to each bus garage in the cluster. The crossover rate changing method is also applied as a trial in order to improve the algorithm performance. Finally, the outputs that are generated by different crossover rates are compared with the results of the k-Nearest Neighbour algorithm to prove the effectiveness of the study.</p

Model development of Multi depot SDVRPTW

Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is a route optimization problem. The current situation grows more complex so the VRP needs to adapt for being close to the practical problems. Perishable products are one example that need route optimization because perishable products require fast delivery time to maintain freshness. Often several companies has several distributors & some retailers (multi-depot), and often found that demand of customer that exceeds of the vehicle capacity so it needs to be visited more than once for each customer to meet customer demands (split-delivery) and with consideration of customer allowed service time (time-windows). In the traditional VRP, there are no consideration factors such as multi-depot (MD), split-delivery (SD) and time-window (TW). Therefore, we developed a model multi- depot split-delivery VRP with time-windows (MDSDVRPTW), which is the relaxation of traditional VRP limitation, with an objective function to minimize the total travel time

Evolutionary multi-objective optimization in uncertain environments

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH