A practical heuristic for a large scale vehicle routing problem

The authors describe a variant of the traditional vehicle routing problem (VRP) associated with the pickup and dropping of employees of large organisations. The human factors involved result in a number of additional constraints to the VRP which are specified to this kind of situation. The authors have developed a heuristic algorithm which solves this type of VRP effectively. The adaptability of the algorithm is demonstrated through a real problem of a large public sector organisation in the city of Bangalore in India involving the daily transportation of about 12000 employees from and to 410 pickup points in and around the city. The use of the present heuristic method has indicated a savings of about 1400km per day out of the daily coverage of 14000km by a fleet of 75 buses. Additional advantages include a reduction in the number of buses and drivers required per shift, improved seat utilisation and better fuel management.