A Column Generation Based Heuristic for the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem with Three-dimensional Loading Constraints

Abstract

This paper addresses an integrated problem of routing and loading known as the three-dimensional loading capacitated vehicle routing problem (3L-CVRP). 3L-CVRP consists of finding feasible routes with minimum total travel cost while satisfying customers’ demands expressed in terms of cuboid and weighted items. Practical constraints related to connectivity, stability, fragility, and LIFO are considered as parts of the problem. 3L-CVRP is addressed by using a column generation (CG) technique based heuristic. To generate new columns, an integrated approach using the shortest path problem and 3D loading problem is applied. To speed up the CG technique, fast CG is also carried out by applying a heuristic pricing method. The CG technique outperforms the efficient tabu search technique proposed in the literature in terms of solution quality and execution time.