Skip to main content

Timber Transport Vehicle Routing Problems: Formulation and Heuristic Solution

  • Conference paper
Operations Research Proceedings 2005

Part of the book series: Operations Research Proceedings ((ORP,volume 2005))

  • 1249 Accesses

Abstract

We present a model formulation and a Tabu Search based solution method for the Timber Transport Vehicle Routing Problem (TTVRP). A fleet of m trucks which are situated at the respective homes of the truck drivers has to fulfil n transports of round timber between different wood storage locations and industrial sites. All transports are carried out as full truck loads. Since the full truck movements are predetermined our objective is to minimize the overall distance of empty truck movements. In addition to the standard VRP we have to consider weight constraints at the network, multi-depots, and time windows. The optimum solution of this problem with common solver software is only possible for very small instances. Therefore we develop a customized heuristic to solve real-life problems. We modify the traditional Tabu Search by delimiting the neighborhood in some iterations and verify our heuristic with extensive numerical studies.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 169.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Coja-Oghlan, A., Krumke, S. O., Nierhoff, T. (2004): A Heuristic for the Stacker Crane Problem on Trees which is Almost Surely Exact. Journal of Algorithms, In Press.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Cordeau, J. F., Laporte, G., Mercier, A. (2001): A unified tabu search heuristic for vehicle routing problems with time windows. Journal of the Operational Research Society 52, 928–936.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  3. Glover, F. and Laguna, M. (1997): Tabu Search. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, USA.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Gronalt, M., Hartl, R., Reimann, M. (2003): New savings based algorithms for time constrained pickup and delivery of full truckloads. European Journal of Operational Research 151, No. 3, 520–535.

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  5. Karanta, I., Jokinen, O., Mikkola, T., Savola, J., Bounsaythip, C. (2000): Requirements for a Vehicle Routing and Scheduling System in Timber Transport. Proceedings of the IUFRO International Conference: Logistics in the forest sector, 235–250.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Palmgren, M., Rönnqvist, M., Värbrand, P. (2003): A near-exact method for solving the log-truck scheduling problem. International Transactions in Operational Research 10, 433–447.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Toth, P. and Vigo, D. (eds.) (2002): The Vehicle Routing Problem. SIAM, Philadelphia, USA.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Toth, P. and Vigo, D. (2003): The Granular Tabu Search and Its Application to the Vehicle-Routing Problem. INFORMS Journal on Computing 15, No. 4, 333–346.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Gronalt, M., Hirsch, P. (2006). Timber Transport Vehicle Routing Problems: Formulation and Heuristic Solution. In: Haasis, HD., Kopfer, H., Schönberger, J. (eds) Operations Research Proceedings 2005. Operations Research Proceedings, vol 2005. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg . https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-32539-5_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics