An improved optimization method based on the intelligent water drops algorithm for the vehicle routing problem

Abstract

We introduce an improved intelligent water drops (IIWD) algorithm as a new swarm-based nature inspired algorithm to solve capacitated vehicle routing problem. IIWD algorithm introduces new adjustments and features that help to optimize the VRP problem with higher efficiency. We reinforce this algorithm to have satisfactory consequences in controlling the balance between diversification and intensification of the search process. We solve 14 well-known benchmark instances in the literature to compare the solutions with the best reported solutions in the literature. Experimental results demonstrate that the suggested technique can well and effectively cope with such problems.