Vehicle routing with time windows based on two-stage optimization algorithm

Abstract

For vehicle routing problem with time windows, a two-stage optimization algorithm with the help of ant colony algorithm and plug-in heuristic algorithm are proposed to solve vehicle routing problem. The first stage is the use of ant colony algorithm AS model to solve the pre-path, and the second stage is pre-path segmentation based on distribution of customer point and the constraints in the model and sub-path re-optimization which take insert heuristic based on the time window classification. Finally, simulation results are used to illustrate that the proposed algorithm can solve the vehicle path planning with time windows easily and effectively compared with other algorithms [28, 29]. Two-stage optimization algorithm proposed in this paper is a new approach to vehicle routing problem with time windows problem.