An adaptive large neighborhood search algorithm for Vehicle Routing Problem with Multiple Time Windows constraints

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>The Vehicle Routing Problem with Multiple Time Windows (VRPMTW) is a generalization of problems in real life logistics distribution, which has a wide range of applications and research values. Several neighborhood search based methods have been used to solve this kind of problem, but it still has drawbacks of generating numbers of infeasible solutions and falling into local optimum easily. In order to solve the problem of arbitrary selection for neighborhoods, a series of neighborhoods are designed and an adaptive strategy is used to select the neighborhood, which constitute the Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search(ALNS) algorithm framework. For escaping from the local optimum effectively in the search process, a local search based on destroy and repair operators is applied to shake the solution by adjusting the number of customers. The proposed method allows infeasible solutions to participate in the iterative process to expand the search space. At the same time, an archive is set to save the high-quality feasible solutions during the search process, and the infeasible solutions are periodically replaced. Computational experimental results on VRPMTW benchmark instances show that the proposed algorithm is effective and has obtained better solutions.</p>