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A two-pheromone trail ant colony system—tabu search approach for the heterogeneous vehicle routing problem with time windows and multiple products

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Abstract

This paper considers a practical variant of the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) known as the Heterogeneous Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows and Multiple Products (HVRPTWMP). As the problem is NP-hard, the resolution approach proposed here is a sequential Ant Colony System (ACS)—Tabu Search algorithm. The approach introduces a two pheromone trail strategy to accelerate agents’ (ants) learning process. Its convergence to good solutions is given in terms of fleet size and travel time while completing tours and service to all customers. The proposed procedure uses regency and frequency memories form Tabu Search to further improve the quality of solutions. Experiments are carried out using instances from literature and show the effectiveness of this procedure.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial Engineering, Universidad del Norte, km 5 vía Puerto Colombia, Barranquilla, Colombia

    Jair J. De la Cruz

  2. Escuela de Negocios, Universidad del Norte, km 5 vía Puerto Colombia, Barranquilla, Colombia

    Carlos D. Paternina-Arboleda

  3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universidad del Norte, km 5 vía Puerto Colombia, Barranquilla, Colombia

    Victor Cantillo

  4. Escuela de Ciencias Económicas y Administrativas, Universidad de La Sabana, km 7 autopista norte de Bogota, D.C., Chia, Cundinamarca, Colombia

    Jairo R. Montoya-Torres

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  1. Jair J. De la Cruz
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  2. Carlos D. Paternina-Arboleda
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  3. Victor Cantillo
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  4. Jairo R. Montoya-Torres
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Correspondence to Jairo R. Montoya-Torres.

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De la Cruz, J.J., Paternina-Arboleda, C.D., Cantillo, V. et al. A two-pheromone trail ant colony system—tabu search approach for the heterogeneous vehicle routing problem with time windows and multiple products. J Heuristics 19, 233–252 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10732-011-9184-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10732-011-9184-0

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