Article ID: | iaor20051361 |
Country: | Netherlands |
Volume: | 152 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 148 |
End Page Number: | 158 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2004 |
Journal: | European Journal of Operational Research |
Authors: | Kiranoudis C.T., Tarantilis C.D., Vassiliadis V.S. |
Keywords: | distribution, heuristics |
The purpose of this paper is to present a new metaheuristic, termed the backtracking adaptive threshold accepting algorithm, for solving the heterogeneous fixed fleet vehicle routing problem (HFFVRP). The HFFVRP is a variant of the classical vehicle routing problem (VRP) and has attracted much less attention in the operational research literature than the classical VRP. It involves the design of a set of minimum cost routes, originating and terminating at a depot, for a fleet with fixed number of vehicles of each type, with various capacities, and variable costs to service a set of customers with known demands. The numerical results show that the proposed algorithm is robust and efficient. New best solutions are reported over a set of published benchmark problems.