Intelligent water drops algorithm for vehicle routing problem with time windows

Abstract

The vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) is investigated in this paper. The constraints of vehicle's capacity and the time windows are considered. Based on the principles of the intelligent water drops, a fast and efficient intelligent water drops algorithm for solving the VRPTW is designed. Simulation results show that we can find the global optimal solution of VRPTW with high probability by intelligent water drops algorithm. The average solution found by the intelligent water drops algorithm is better than that found by other algorithms.