Hybrid Metaheuristic to Solve the Selective Multi-compartment Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

Abstract

This paper presents a new variant of the multi-compartment Vehicle Routing Problem (MCVRP) with profits and time windows. This problem is called the selective MCVRP with time windows. In the proposed approach, a limited number of k vehicles with multiple compartment is available at the depot to serve a set of customers. Each vehicle has a limited capacity and each compartment contains one product. A customer is served only within a given time windows and when it is visited a profit is collected. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, this problem is addressed for the first time. The goal of this research work is to determine a set of routes limited in length, such that a set of customers are visited within a given time windows, the total collected profit is maximized and the total routing cost is minimized. We present an hybrid metaheuristic to solve this problem.