Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem With Time Windows Research Articles

Solving dynamic vehicle routing problem with time windows by ant colony system with bipartite graph matching

Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (DVRPTW) is an extension of the traditional VRPTW by considering dynamic customer characteristics. In this problem, new customers with specific time windows are received dynamically as time progresses and must be incorporated into the evolving schedule. The goal of DVRPTW is to use the minimum number of vehicles to fulfill all the customer demands with the minimum total traveling time. Little work has been done for solving this dynamic variant. In this paper, an evolutionary algorithm using Ant Colony System and Kuhn-Munkres bipartite graph matching, named ACS-KM, is proposed. It can tackle the dynamic issues during the evolutionary process. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm is very effective and has fast convergence. It achieves the best results on 40 out of 48 benchmark instances. For the DVRPTW instances with different levels of dynamicity, the algorithm can always produce better solutions than the previous works.

An improved genetic algorithm for solving the multi-objective vehicle routing problem with environmental considerations

In recent years, the negative impacts of neglecting the environment, particularly global warming caused by greenhouse gases, have gained attention. Many countries and organizations are taking steps to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and promote sustainable practices. In this paper, we aim to address the gap in the classical Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) by taking into consideration the environmental effects of vehicles. To find a balance between cost-efficiency and environmental impact, we propose a Hybrid Genetic Algorithm (HGA) to address the Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (DVRPTW) and a heterogeneous fleet, taking into account new orders that arrive dynamically during the routing process. This approach takes into consideration the environmental effects of the solutions by optimizing the number and type/size of vehicles used to fulfill both static and dynamic orders. The goal is to provide a solution that is both cost-effective and environmentally friendly, addressing the issue of over-exploitation of energy and atmospheric pollution that threaten our ecological environment. Computational results prove that the hybridization of a genetic algorithm with a greedy algorithm can find high-quality solutions in a reasonable run time.

A Hybrid BSO-ACO for Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem on Real-World Road Networks

The Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem With Time Windows (DVRPTW) is an NP-hard problem, which has attracted a lot of attention in the past decades due to its many practical applications in logistics. In order to better describe the actual logistics distribution scenario, this paper studies the DVRPTW based on real road networks and proposes the hybrid BSO-ACO algorithm, which is a combination of Brain Storm Optimization (BSO), Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and Neighborhood Search (2-opt, relocate, exchange). The algorithm 1) uses ACO to generate new individuals from the same cluster formed by BSO, and increases exploitation by ACO’s pheromone accumulation, 2) harnesses the 2-opt, relocate, and exchange to increase exploration to avoid the algorithm from falling into local optima. We construct a test set by extracting the real road networks in Panyu District, Guangzhou, China and compare the hybrid BSO-ACO algorithm with other algorithms on this test set. The computation experiments show the effectiveness and efficiency of the hybrid BSO-ACO algorithm.

Metaheuristics for The Solution of Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem With Time Windows (DVRPTW) With Travel Time Variable

This research is focusing on the development of metaheuristic algorithm to solve Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem With Time Windows (DVRPTW) for the service provider of Inter-city Courier. The algorithm is divided into two stages which is static stage and dynamic stage. In the static stage, modified Ant Colony System is developed and in the dynamic stage, Insertion Heuristic is developed. In DVRPTW, vehicle’s routes are raised dynamically based on real time information, for example the reception of new order. To test the performances of the developed metaheuristic algorithm, the author compares the developed algorithm with the nearest neighbor algorithm and with the combination between the nearest neighbor and insertion heuristics algorithm. Experiment is done using Chen’s standard data test. The developed metaheuristic algorithm was applied on the network data of the roads in Surabaya, where the routes generated not only determine the order that the consumer must visit but also determine the routes that must be passed. After the experiment, the author conclude that the developed algorithm generates a better travel time total than the nearest neighbor and the combination between the nearest neighbor and insertion heuristics and can also generate route dynamically to respond to the new order well.

A Modified Harmony Search Algorithm for Solving the Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is a classical combinatorial optimization problem. It is usually modelled in a static fashion; however, in practice, new requests by customers arrive after the initial workday plan is in progress. In this case, routes must be replanned dynamically. This paper investigates the Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (DVRPTW) in which customers’ requests either can be known at the beginning of working day or occur dynamically over time. We propose a hybrid heuristic algorithm that combines the harmony search (HS) algorithm and the Variable Neighbourhood Descent (VND) algorithm. It uses the HS to provide global exploration capabilities and uses the VND for its local search capability. In order to prevent premature convergence of the solution, we evaluate the population diversity by using entropy. Computational results on the Lackner benchmark problems show that the proposed algorithm is competitive with the best existing algorithms from the literature.

A dynamic vehicle routing problem based on real-time traffic information

We treat the dynamic vehicle routing problem with time windows (DVRPTW) in the context of real-time traffic information. We integrate traffic information obtained in real time to change the speed profile according to the accidents on the road network (congestion, etc.). The travel times are based on a time-dependent model in which the travel speeds are step functions. This model is enriched with an exponential smoothing function able to calculate the forecasted speed. The analysis of the results of these experiments shows that our method with real-time traffic information provides a good performance, a better robustness against a simple model with time dependent travel time.

A Hybrid Genetic Approach for the Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

SYNOPTIC ABSTRACTRecent progress in information technology brings new challenges in dealing with the dynamic vehicle routing problem with time windows (DVRPTW). However, few alternate methods to the well-known Tabu Search –based techniques have been proposed so far to solve the DVRPTW efficiently. In this paper, a new hybrid genetic approach (HGA-LCS) to address the DVRPTW is presented. The basic scheme consists in concurrently evolving two populations of solutions to minimize customer service denial, lateness or temporal constraint violation, and total traveled distance. Combining variations of key concepts inspired from routing techniques and search strategies to define new hybrid genetic operators, the proposed approach also exploits a least commitment routing policy in servicing scheduled customers to potentially improve solution quality. The strategy consists in delaying customer visits and therefore premature route construction as long as possible to deal with a larger number of customers all at once when building a solution. Comparative results from a computational experiment over a common set of benchmark problems show the proposed procedure to match or outperform some of the best heuristic routing methods while being fast and highly competitive.

Scenario-Based Planning for Partially Dynamic Vehicle Routing with Stochastic Customers

The multiple vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) is a hard and extensively studied combinatorial optimization problem. This paper considers a dynamic VRPTW with stochastic customers, where the goal is to maximize the number of serviced customers. It presents a multiple scenario approach (MSA) that continuously generates routing plans for scenarios including known and future requests. Decisions during execution use a distinguished plan chosen, at each decision, by a consensus function. The approach was evaluated on vehicle routing problems adapted from the Solomon benchmarks with a degree of dynamism varying between 30% and 80%. They indicate that MSA exhibits dramatic improvements over approaches not exploiting stochastic information, that the use of consensus function improves the quality of the solutions significantly, and that the benefits of MSA increase with the (effective) degree of dynamism.