Modelling and heuristically solving many-to-many heterogeneous vehicle routing problem with cross-docking and two-dimensional loading constraints

Abstract

In light of the existing practical applications of the two-dimensional loading on vehicle scheduling and many-to-many supply-demand relationships between suppliers and customers, we address a many-to-many heterogeneous vehicle routing problem with cross-docking and two-dimensional loading constraints (or the heterogeneous 2L-MVRPCD). The newly proposed problem can be regarded as a generalized problem of the many-to-many vehicle routing with cross-docking (MVRPCD) and capacitated vehicle routing problem with two-dimensional loading constraints (2L-CVRP). To solve small-scale 2L-MVRPCDs, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is developed, whereas two hybrid optimization heuristic algorithms are proposed to solve large-scale 2L-MVRPCDs. The first heuristic incorporates a basic adaptive large neighborhood search (ALNS) algorithm and a new best-fit-skyline (BFS) packing heuristic, while the second heuristic, a Tabu-based ALNS (ALNS/TS), extends the first one by embedding an insert-tabu strategy to enhance the intensity and diversity of search. Wide-ranging instances with various many-to-many supply-demand scenarios and different loading configurations are employed to verify the efficacy of the proposed MILP model and two heuristics. Numerical results show that small-scale heterogeneous 2L-MVRPCD instances with and without the rotation constraints can be solved to optimality by commercial solvers, and the proposed heuristics can achieve high-quality solutions within a reasonable computational time for large-scale instances. Meanwhile, the comparison between the proposed heuristics and existing methods verifies the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed heuristics for solving MVRPCD and 2L-CVRP.