Using a hybrid heuristic to solve the balanced vehicle routing problem with loading constraints

Abstract

The Vehicle Routing Problem with Loading Constraints (VRPLC) is strongly related to real life applications in distribution logistics. It addresses the simultaneous loading and routing of vehicles, which are two crucial activities in transportation. Since treating these operations separately may result in impractical solutions, the development of applications for VRPLCs has gained the attention of researchers in recent years. Several heuristic methods have been proposed, but they consider only a limited group of practical characteristics that arise in real world situations. This study proposes a hybrid heuristic method based on the Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP) metaheuristic and the Clarke and Wright Savings algorithm, to solve a VRPLC with several loading and routing constraints that have not been considered simultaneously before. Experimental results show that the proposed procedure produces competitive solutions in short processing times. Lastly, the impact of the added operational constraints is also analyzed.

An enhanced GRASP approach for the index tracking problem

“…It then became a broad approach for combinatorial optimization problems, as discussed in Feo and Resende (1995), and different adaptations and implementations have been proposed. Recently, GRASP was applied in many different contexts, such as facility location (Albareda‐Sambola et al., 2017), capacitated dispersion (Peiró et al., 2021), different types of scheduling problems (Sanchez‐Herrera et al., 2019; Barbalho et al., 2021; Polo‐Mejía et al., 2021; Villarinho et al., 2021), vehicle routing (Exposito et al., 2019; Vu et al., 2021), stowage planning (Vega‐Mejia et al., 2020), and data mining (Marzo and Ribeiro, 2020).…”

Mathematical Models for the Vehicle Routing Problem by Considering Balancing Load and Customer Compactness

“…The balanced cargo vehicle routing problem with time windows (BCVRPTW) has been studied by [30][31][32]. A combination of the WBVRP with loading constraints has been introduced by [33]. A real-world balanced open vehicle routing problem considering the minimization of the makespan is introduced by [34].…”