Un modelo para resolver el problema dinámico de despacho de vehículos con incertidumbre de clientes y con tiempos de viaje en arcos

Indexación: Web of Science; ScieloIn a real world case scenario, customer demands are requested at any time of the day requiring services that are not known in advance such as delivery or repairing equipment. This is called Dynamic Vehicle Routing (DVR) with customer uncertainty environment. The link travel time for the roadway network varies with time as traffic fluctuates adding an additional component to the dynamic environment. This paper presents a model for solving the DVR problem while combining these two dynamic aspects (customer uncertainty and link travel time). The proposed model employs Greedy, Insertion, and Ant Colony Optimization algorithms. The Greedy algorithm is utilized for constructing new routes with existing customers, and the remaining two algorithms are employed for rerouting as new customer demands appear. A real world application is presented to simulate vehicle routing in a dynamic environment for the city of Taipei, Taiwan. The simulation shows that the model can successfully plan vehicle routes to satisfy all customer demands and help managers in the decision making process.En un escenario real, los pedidos de los clientes son solicitados a cualquier hora del día requiriendo servicios que no han sido planificados con antelación tales como los despachos o la reparación de equipos. Esto es llamado ruteo dinámico de vehículos (RDV) considerando un ambiente con incertidumbre de clientes. El tiempo de viaje en una red vial varía con el tiempo a medida que el tráfico vehicular fluctúa agregando una componente adicional al ambiente dinámico. Este artículo propone un modelo para resolver el problema RDV combinando estos dos aspectos dinámicos. El modelo propuesto utiliza los algoritmos Greedy, Inserción y optimización basada en colonias de hormigas. El algoritmo Greedy es utilizado para construir nuevas rutas con los clientes existentes y los otros dos algoritmos son usados para rutear vehículos a medida que surjan nuevos clientes con sus respectivos pedidos. Además, se presenta una aplicación real para simular el ruteo vehicular en un ambiente dinámico para la ciudad de Taipei, Taiwán. Esta simulación muestra que el modelo es capaz de planificar exitosamente las rutas vehiculares satisfaciendo los pedidos de los clientes y de ayudar los gerentes en el proceso de toma de decisiones.http://ref.scielo.org/3ryfh

A new exact algorithm for the multi-depot vehicle routing problem under capacity and route length constraints

This article presents an exact algorithm for the multi-depot vehicle routing problem (MDVRP) under capacity and route length constraints. The MDVRP is formulated using a vehicle-flow and a set-partitioning formulation, both of which are exploited at different stages of the algorithm. The lower bound computed with the vehicle-flow formulation is used to eliminate non-promising edges, thus reducing the complexity of the pricing subproblem used to solve the set-partitioning formulation. Several classes of valid inequalities are added to strengthen both formulations, including a new family of valid inequalities used to forbid cycles of an arbitrary length. To validate our approach, we also consider the capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) as a particular case of the MDVRP, and conduct extensive computational experiments on several instances from the literature to show its effectiveness. The computational results show that the proposed algorithm is competitive against stateof-the-art methods for these two classes of vehicle routing problems, and is able to solve to optimality some previously open instances. Moreover, for the instances that cannot be solved by the proposed algorithm, the final lower bounds prove stronger than those obtained by earlier methods

A large neighbourhood based heuristic for two-echelon routing problems

In this paper, we address two optimisation problems arising in the context of city logistics and two-level transportation systems. The two-echelon vehicle routing problem and the two-echelon location routing problem seek to produce vehicle itineraries to deliver goods to customers, with transits through intermediate facilities. To efficiently solve these problems, we propose a hybrid metaheuristic which combines enumerative local searches with destroy-and-repair principles, as well as some tailored operators to optimise the selections of intermediate facilities. We conduct extensive computational experiments to investigate the contribution of these operators to the search performance, and measure the performance of the method on both problem classes. The proposed algorithm finds the current best known solutions, or better ones, for 95% of the two-echelon vehicle routing problem benchmark instances. Overall, for both problems, it achieves high-quality solutions within short computing times. Finally, for future reference, we resolve inconsistencies between different versions of benchmark instances, document their differences, and provide them all online in a unified format

Una comparación de algoritmos basados en trayectoria granular para el problema de localización y ruteo con flota heterogénea (LRPH)

Indexación: Scopus.We consider the Location-Routing Problem with Heterogeneous Fleet (LRPH) in which the goal is to determine the depots to be opened, the customers to be assigned to each open depot, and the corresponding routes fulfilling the demand of the customers and by considering a heterogeneous fleet. We propose a comparison of granular approaches of Simulated Annealing (GSA), of Variable Neighborhood Search (GVNS) and of a probabilistic Tabu Search (pGTS) for the LRPH. Thus, the proposed approaches consider a subset of the search space in which non-favorable movements are discarded regarding a granularity factor. The proposed algorithms are experimentally compared for the solution of the LRPH, by taking into account the CPU time and the quality of the solutions obtained on the instances adapted from the literature. The computational results show that algorithm GSA is able to obtain high quality solutions within short CPU times, improving the results obtained by the other proposed approaches.https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/dyna/article/view/55533/5896

The Vehicle Routing Problem with Service Level Constraints

We consider a vehicle routing problem which seeks to minimize cost subject to service level constraints on several groups of deliveries. This problem captures some essential challenges faced by a logistics provider which operates transportation services for a limited number of partners and should respect contractual obligations on service levels. The problem also generalizes several important classes of vehicle routing problems with profits. To solve it, we propose a compact mathematical formulation, a branch-and-price algorithm, and a hybrid genetic algorithm with population management, which relies on problem-tailored solution representation, crossover and local search operators, as well as an adaptive penalization mechanism establishing a good balance between service levels and costs. Our computational experiments show that the proposed heuristic returns very high-quality solutions for this difficult problem, matches all optimal solutions found for small and medium-scale benchmark instances, and improves upon existing algorithms for two important special cases: the vehicle routing problem with private fleet and common carrier, and the capacitated profitable tour problem. The branch-and-price algorithm also produces new optimal solutions for all three problems

Comparison of heuristic approaches for the multiple depot vehicle scheduling problem

Given a set of timetabled tasks, the multi-depot vehicle scheduling problemis a well-known problem that consists of determining least-cost schedulesfor vehicles assigned to several depots such that each task is accomplishedexactly once by a vehicle. In this paper, we propose to compare theperformance of five different heuristic approaches for this problem,namely, a heuristic \\mip solver, a Lagrangian heuristic, a columngeneration heuristic, a large neighborhood search heuristic using columngeneration for neighborhood evaluation, and a tabu search heuristic. Thefirst three methods are adaptations of existing methods, while the last twoare novel approaches for this problem. Computational results on randomlygenerated instances show that the column generation heuristic performs thebest when enough computational time is available and stability is required,while the large neighborhood search method is the best alternative whenlooking for a compromise between computational time and solution quality.tabu search;column generation;vehicle scheduling;heuristics;Lagrangian heuristic;large neighborhood search;multiple depot

Workload Equity in Vehicle Routing Problems: A Survey and Analysis

Over the past two decades, equity aspects have been considered in a growing number of models and methods for vehicle routing problems (VRPs). Equity concerns most often relate to fairly allocating workloads and to balancing the utilization of resources, and many practical applications have been reported in the literature. However, there has been only limited discussion about how workload equity should be modeled in VRPs, and various measures for optimizing such objectives have been proposed and implemented without a critical evaluation of their respective merits and consequences. This article addresses this gap with an analysis of classical and alternative equity functions for biobjective VRP models. In our survey, we review and categorize the existing literature on equitable VRPs. In the analysis, we identify a set of axiomatic properties that an ideal equity measure should satisfy, collect six common measures, and point out important connections between their properties and those of the resulting Pareto-optimal solutions. To gauge the extent of these implications, we also conduct a numerical study on small biobjective VRP instances solvable to optimality. Our study reveals two undesirable consequences when optimizing equity with nonmonotonic functions: Pareto-optimal solutions can consist of non-TSP-optimal tours, and even if all tours are TSP optimal, Pareto-optimal solutions can be workload inconsistent, i.e. composed of tours whose workloads are all equal to or longer than those of other Pareto-optimal solutions. We show that the extent of these phenomena should not be underestimated. The results of our biobjective analysis are valid also for weighted sum, constraint-based, or single-objective models. Based on this analysis, we conclude that monotonic equity functions are more appropriate for certain types of VRP models, and suggest promising avenues for further research.Comment: Accepted Manuscrip