Abstract
Despite their importance, relatively little attention has been paid to vehicle routing problems with asymmetric costs (ACVRPs), or their benchmark instances. Taking advantage of recent advances in map application programming interfaces (APIs) and shared spatial data, this paper proposes new realistic sets of ACVRP benchmark instances. The spatial data of urban distribution centers, postal hubs, large shopping malls, residential complexes, restaurant businesses and convenience stores are used. To create distance and time matrices, the T map API, one of the most frequently used real time path analysis and distance measurement tools in Korea, is used. This paper also analyzes some important issues prevailing in urban transportation environments. These include the challenges of accounting for the frequency and distance in which air travel differs from reality when measuring closeness, the differences in distance and time for outgoing and return trips, and the rough conversion ratios from air distance to road distance and to road time. This paper contributes to the research community by providing more realistic ACVRP benchmark instances that reflect urban transportation environments. In addition, the cost matrix analyses provide insights into the behaviors of urban road networks.
Highlights
vehicle routing problems (VRPs) variations exist, including the multi-depot vehicle routing problem (MVRP), in which vehicles depart from multiple depots, and the open vehicle routing problem (OVRP), in which vehicles do not return to the depot
The research community needs properly has a large effect over the solution methods and quality in VRPs, and this dynamic should designed and realistic asymmetric cost VRPs (ACVRPs) benchmark instances when developing these algorithms
Few researchers paid attention to the classical ACVRP itself. This was not because the scientific community had conquered the problem. This was due to the fact that the ACVRP lacks benchmark instances or published best-known solutions
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. There are many new larger-sized instances that lack rationale for the methods used in their creation This lack can, in part, be explained by the difficulty in obtaining the exact road distance or time from all nodes to other nodes. The research community needs properly has a large effect over the solution methods and quality in VRPs, and this dynamic should designed and realistic ACVRP benchmark instances when developing these algorithms. The ACVRP and its existing benchmark instances are summarized, and a recent trend of including the use of map APIs in solving VRP variants is reviewed. Using the road distance and road time in the new benchmark sets, Section 4 conducts an analysis on three issues: how air distance can be deceiving when measuring costs, how outgoing and return trips differ in cost, and the magnitude in which road distances exceed air distances on average.
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