Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T17:40:38.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A threshold accepting approach to the Open Vehicle Routing problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2004

Christos D. Tarantilis ,
George Ioannou ,
Chris T. Kiranoudis  and
Gregory P. Prastacos
Christos D. Tarantilis
Affiliation:
Management Sciences Laboratory, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece; [email protected].
George Ioannou
Affiliation:
Management Sciences Laboratory, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece.
Chris T. Kiranoudis
Affiliation:
Department of Process Analysis and Plant Design, National Technical University of Athens, Greece.
Gregory P. Prastacos
Affiliation:
Management Sciences Laboratory, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece.
Get access

Abstract

In this paper we consider the operational planning problem of physical distribution via a fleet of hired vehicles, for which the travelling cost is solely a function of the sequence of locations visited within all open delivery routes, while vehicle fixed cost is inexistent. The problem is a special class of vehicle routing and is encountered in the literature as the Open Vehicle Routing Problem (OVRP), since vehicles are not required to return to the depot. The goal is to distribute in an optimal way finished goods from a central facility to geographically dispersed customers, which pose daily demand for items produced in the facility and act as sales points for consumers. To solve the problem, we employ an annealing-based method that utilizes a backtracking policy of the threshold value when no acceptances of feasible solutions occur during the search process. Computational results on a set of benchmark problems show that the proposed method consistently outperforms previous algorithms for solving the OVRP. The approach can serve as the means for effective fleet planning in real-life problems.

Keywords

Distributionvehicle routinglogistics.
Type
Research Article
Information
RAIRO - Operations Research , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , October 2004 , pp. 345 - 360
Copyright
© EDP Sciences, 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bodin, L., Golden, B., Assad, A. and Ball, M., Routing and scheduling of vehicles and crews: the state of the art. Comput. Oper. Res. 10 (1983) 63–211.
Brandão, J., A tabu search algorithm for the Open Vehicle Routing Problem. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 157 (2004) 552–564. CrossRef
Bräysy, O., Berger, J., Barkaoui, M. and Dullaert, W., A threshold accepting metaheuristic for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows. Central Eur. J. Oper. Res. 11 (2003) 369–387.
N. Christofides, A. Mingozzi and P. Toth, The vehicle routing problem, in Combinatorial Optimization, edited by N. Christofides, A. Mingozzi, P. Toth and C. Sandi. Wiley, Chichester (1979) 315–338.
Clarke, G. and Wright, J.W., Scheduling of vehicles from a central depot to a number of delivery points. Oper. Res. 12 (1964) 568–589. CrossRef
J.-F. Cordeau, M. Gendreau, A. Hertz, G. Laporte and J.S. Sormany, New Heuristics for the Vehicle Routing Problem, in Logistics Systems: Design and Optimization, edited by A. Langevin et D. Riopel. Kluwer (to appear).
Cordeau, J.-F., Gendreau, M., Laporte, G., Potvin, J.-Y. and Semet, F., A guide to vehicle routing heuristics. J. Oper. Res. Soc. 53 (2002) 512–522. CrossRef
Croes, G., A method for solving traveling salesman problems. Oper. Res. 6 (1958) 791–812. CrossRef
Dueck, G. and Scheuer, T., Threshold accepting: a general purpose algorithm appearing superior to simulated annealing. J. Comput. Phys. 90 (1990) 161–175. CrossRef
Gendreau, M., Hertz, A. and Laporte, G., A tabu search heuristic for the vehicle routing problem. Manage. Sci. 40 (1994) 1276–1290. CrossRef
Gendreau, M., Hertz, A. and Laporte, G., New insertion and postoptimization procedures for the traveling salesman problem. Oper. Res. 40 (1992) 1086–1094. CrossRef
B.L. Golden, E.A. Wasil, J.P. Kelly and I.-M. Chao, The impact of metaheuristics on solving the vehicle routing problem: Algorithms, problem sets, and computational results, edited by T.G. Crainic and G. Laporte. Fleet Management and Logistics, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston (1998) 33–56.
B. Golden and A.A. Assad, Vehicle Routing: Methods and Studies. Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam (1988).
Kirkpatrick, S., Gelatt Jr, C.D.. and M.P. Vecchi, Optimization by simulated annealing. Science 220 (1983) 671–680. CrossRef
Sariklis, D. and Powell, S., A heuristic method for the open vehicle routing problem. J. Oper. Res. Soc. 51 (2000) 564–573. CrossRef
M. Syslo, N. Deo and J. Kowaklik, Discrete Optimization Algoritms with Pascal Programs. Prentice Hall, Inc. (1983).
Tarantilis, C.D., Kiranoudis, C.T. and Vassiliadis, V.S., A list based threshold accepting metaheuristic for the heterogeneous fixed fleet vehicle routing problem. J. Oper. Res. Soc. 54 (2003) 65–71. CrossRef
Tarantilis, C.D. and Kiranoudis, C.T., BoneRoute: An adaptive memory-based method for effective fleet management. Ann. Oper. Res. 115 (2002) 227–241. CrossRef
Waters, C.D.J., A solution procedure for the vehicle scheduling problem based on iterative route improvement. J. Oper. Res. Soc. 38 (1987) 833–839. CrossRef