A variable neighborhood search with path-relinking for the capacitated location routing problem

Abstract

The Location Routing Problem (LRP) integrates strategic decisions (facility location) and tactical decisions (vehicle routing) aimed at minimizing the total cost associated with location opening cost and routing cost. It belongs to the class of NP-hard problems. In this study, we present a variable neighborhood search with path-relinking (VNSPR) for solving the LRP. We tested our heuristic approach on three sets of well-known LRP benchmark instances and compared the results with those reported in the literature. The computational results indicate that the proposed VNSPR heuristic is competitive with existing approaches for the LRP.