Competitive decision algorithm and its application to vehicle routing problem

Through analysing the mechanism of natural competitions and the principle of decision, and based on the characteristics that competition builds optimization and the result of competition highs on decision, this paper proposes a new algorithm: competitive decision algorithm, to solve combinatorial optimization problems. A general model for competitive decision algorithm is provided. And according to this model, a competitive decision algorithm for solving vehicle routing problem, which is a well-known NP-hard problem and is very important in practical transport logistics, is developed. By using the new algorithm, we solved some CVRP instances and compared these solutions with the best-known solutions. Computational results on benchmark problems show that this approach is promising in good performances and some solutions of the CVRP instances are better than the best solutions published.