scholarly journals Branch-Cut-and-Price for the Robust Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem with Knapsack Uncertainty

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Artur Alves Pessoa ◽  
Michael Poss ◽  
Ruslan Sadykov ◽  
François Vanderbeck

Capacitated vehicle routing problems are widely studied combinatorial optimization problems, and branch-and-cut-and-price algorithms can solve instances harder than ever before. These models, however, neglect that demands volumes are often not known with precision when planning the vehicle routes, thus incentivizing decision makers to significantly overestimate the volumes for avoiding coping with infeasible routes. A robust formulation that models demand uncertainty through a knapsack polytope is considered. A new branch-and-cut-and-price algorithm for the problem is provided, which combines efficient algorithms for the problem with no uncertainty with profound results in robust combinatorial optimization and includes novel heuristics and new valid inequalities. The numerical results illustrate that the resulting approach is two orders of magnitude faster that the best algorithm from the literature, solving twice as many instances to optimality.

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lahcene Guezouli ◽  
Samir Abdelhamid

One of the most important combinatorial optimization problems is the transport problem, which has been associated with many variants such as the HVRP and dynamic problem. The authors propose in this study a decision support system which aims to optimize the classical Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem by considering the existence of different vehicle types (with distinct capacities and costs) and multiple available depots, that the authors call the Multi-Depot HVRPTW by respecting a set of criteria including: schedules requests from clients, the heterogeneous capacity of vehicles..., and the authors solve this problem by proposing a new scheme based on a genetic algorithm heuristics that they will specify later. Computational experiments with the benchmark test instances confirm that their approach produces acceptable quality solutions compared with previous results in similar problems in terms of generated solutions and processing time. Experimental results prove that the method of genetic algorithm heuristics is effective in solving the MDHVRPTW problem and hence has a great potential.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilbert Laporte

The Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) and the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) are two of the most popular problems in the field of combinatorial optimization. Due to the study of these two problems, there has been a significant growth in families of exact and heuristic algorithms being used today. The purpose of this paper is to show how their study has fostered developments of the most popular algorithms now applied to the solution of combinatorial optimization problems. These include exact algorithms, classical heuristics and metaheuristics.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Osaba ◽  
F. Diaz ◽  
R. Carballedo ◽  
E. Onieva ◽  
A. Perallos

Nowadays, the development of new metaheuristics for solving optimization problems is a topic of interest in the scientific community. In the literature, a large number of techniques of this kind can be found. Anyway, there are many recently proposed techniques, such as the artificial bee colony and imperialist competitive algorithm. This paper is focused on one recently published technique, the one called Golden Ball (GB). The GB is a multiple-population metaheuristic based on soccer concepts. Although it was designed to solve combinatorial optimization problems, until now, it has only been tested with two simple routing problems: the traveling salesman problem and the capacitated vehicle routing problem. In this paper, the GB is applied to four different combinatorial optimization problems. Two of them are routing problems, which are more complex than the previously used ones: the asymmetric traveling salesman problem and the vehicle routing problem with backhauls. Additionally, one constraint satisfaction problem (the n-queen problem) and one combinatorial design problem (the one-dimensional bin packing problem) have also been used. The outcomes obtained by GB are compared with the ones got by two different genetic algorithms and two distributed genetic algorithms. Additionally, two statistical tests are conducted to compare these results.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-56
Author(s):  
Thiago A.S. Masutti ◽  
Leandro Nunes de Castro

Combinatorial optimization problems are broadly studied in the literature. On the one hand, their challenging characteristics, such as the constraints and number of potential solutions, inspires their use to test new solution techniques. On the other hand, the practical application of these problems provides support of daily tasks of people and companies. Vehicle routing problems constitute a well-known class of combinatorial optimization problems, from which the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) is one of the most elementary ones. TSP corresponds to finding the shortest route that visits all cities within a path returning to the start city. Despite its simplicity, the difficulty in finding its exact solution and its direct application in practical problems in multiple areas make it one of the most studied problems in the literature. Algorithms inspired by biological phenomena are being successfully applied to solve optimization tasks, mainly combinatorial optimization problems. Those inspired by the collective behavior of insects produce good results for solving such problems. This article proposes the VRoptBees, a framework inspired by honeybee behavior to tackle vehicle routing problems. The framework provides a flexible and modular tool to easily build solutions to vehicle routing problems. Together with the framework, two examples of implementation are described, one to solve the TSP and the other to solve the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP). Tests were conducted with benchmark instances from the literature, showing competitive results.


Author(s):  
Camelia-M. Pintea ◽  
Camelia Chira ◽  
Dan Dumitrescu

The idea of sensitivity in ant colony systems has been exploited in hybrid ant-based models with promising results for many combinatorial optimization problems. Heterogeneity is induced in the ant population by endowing individual ants with a certain level of sensitivity to the pheromone trail. The variable pheromone sensitivity within the same population of ants can potentially intensify the search while in the same time inducing diversity for the exploration of the environment. The performance of sensitive ant models is investigated for solving the generalized vehicle routing problem. Numerical results and comparisons are discussed and analysed with a focus on emphasizing any particular aspects and potential benefits related to hybrid ant-based models.


2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petrica Pop ◽  
Corina Pop-Sitar

Classical combinatorial optimization problems can be generalized in a natural way by considering a related problem relative to a given partition of the nodes of the graph into node sets. In the literature one can find generalized problems such as: generalized minimum spanning tree, generalized traveling salesman problem, generalized Steiner tree problem, generalized vehicle routing problem, etc. These generalized problems typically belong to the class of NP-complete problems; they are harder than the classical ones, and nowadays are intensively studied due to their interesting properties and applications in the real world. Because of the complexity of finding the optimal or near-optimal solution in case of the generalized combinatorial optimization problems, great effort has been made, by many researchers, to develop efficient ways of their transformation into classical corresponding variants. We present in this paper an efficient way of transforming the generalized vehicle routing problem into the vehicle routing problem, and a new integer programming formulation of the problem.


Kursor ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhanna Mari ◽  
Wayan Firdaus Mahmudy ◽  
Purnomo Budi Santoso

In the industrial sector, in order to increase the company's competitive profit and ratio, must be able to suppress as much expenditure as possible. Product distribution is one of the logistics processes in the industry which consumes the most costs. Products must be distributed to customers in different locations and also with varying requests. The problem belongs to Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) that is considered as one of the complex combinatorial optimization problems included in the NP-Hard Problem category, which is a problem that requires difficult computation and a lot of time along with the increasing size of the problem data. So, in this study improvisation will be carried out in the form of modifying the simulated annealing method to solve the combinatorial problem so that the optimal distance in the case of distribution will be obtained. In addition, in this study a comparison will be made between basic simulated annealing and also improved simulated annealing. Based on the results of the research it is proven that Improved Simulated Annealing can provide a better solution.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lahcene Guezouli ◽  
Mohamed Bensakhria ◽  
Samir Abdelhamid

In this article, the authors propose a decision support system which aims to optimize the classical Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem by considering the existence of multiple available depots and a time window which must not be violated, that they call the Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Window (MDVRPTW), and with respecting a set of criteria including: schedules requests from clients, the capacity of vehicles. The authors solve this problem by proposing a recently published technique based on soccer concepts, called Golden Ball (GB), with different solution representation from the original one, this technique was designed to solve combinatorial optimization problems, and by embedding a clustering algorithm. Computational results have shown that the approach produces acceptable quality solutions compared to the best previous results in similar problem in terms of generated solutions and processing time. Experimental results prove that the proposed Golden Ball algorithm is efficient and effective to solve the MDVRPTW problem.


Author(s):  
Arman Davtyan ◽  
Suren Khachatryan

A new metaheuristic algorithm is proposed for Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem. CVRP is one of the fundamental problems in combinatorial optimization that deals with transport route minimization. The algorithm combines Simulated Annealing, multi-start and simultaneous computing techniques. A series of computational tests are conducted on several CVRP benchmarks and near-optimal solutions are obtained. The results indicate superior performance compared with Simulated Annealing


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