A tabu search heuristic for the heterogeneous fleet vehicle routing problem

doi:10.1016/S0305-0548(98)00100-2

Computers & Operations Research

Volume 26, Issue 12, October 1999, Pages 1153-1173

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-0548(98)00100-2 Get rights and content

Abstract

The Heterogeneous Fleet Vehicle Routing Problem (HVRP) is a variant of the classical Vehicle Routing Problem in which customers are served by a heterogeneous fleet of vehicles with various capacities, fixed costs, and variable costs. This article describes a tabu search heuristic for the HVRP. On a set of benchmark instances, it consistently produces high-quality solutions, including several new best-known solutions.

Scope and purpose

In distribution management, it is often necessary to determine a combination of least cost vehicle routes through a set of geographically scattered customers, subject to side constraints. The case most frequently studied is where all vehicles are identical. This article proposes a solution methodology for the case where the vehicle fleet is heterogeneous. It describes an efficient tabu search heuristic capable of producing high-quality solutions on a series of benchmark test problems.

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