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Tabu Search heuristics for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

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Abstract

This paper surveys the research on the Tabu Search heuristics for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW). The VRPTW can be described as the problem of designing least cost routes for a fleet of vehicles from one depot to a set of geographically scattered points. The routes must be designed in such a way that each point is visited only once by exactly one vehicle within a given time interval; all routes start and end at the depot, and the total demands of all points on one particular route must not exceed the capacity of the vehicle. In addition to describing basic features of each method, experimental results for Solomon’s benchmark test problems are presented and analyzed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Optimization, SINTEF Applied Mathematics, P.O. Box 124 Blindern, N-0314, Oslo, Norway

    Olli Bräysy

  2. Centre de Recherche sur les Transports, Université de Montréal, Case postale 6128, Succursale “Centre-ville”, H3C 3J7, Montréal, Canada

    Michel Gendreau

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  1. Olli Bräysy
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  2. Michel Gendreau
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Additional information

This work was partially supported by the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, Liikesivistysrahasto Foundation, the Canadian Natural Science and Engineering Research Council and the TOP program funded by the Research Council of Norway. This support is gratefully acknowledged.

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Bräysy, O., Gendreau, M. Tabu Search heuristics for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows. Top 10, 211–237 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02579017

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