Generalized variable neighborhood search algorithm for vehicle routing problem with time windows and synchronization

IF 4.1 2区工程技术 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS

Computers & Operations Research Pub Date : 2025-06-25 DOI:10.1016/j.cor.2025.107193

Malek Masmoudi , Rahma Borchani , Bassem Jarboui

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The problem addressed in this paper is the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows and Synchronization (VRPTW-S), a variant of the Vehicle Routing Problem where each customer must be served within a specific time window, and some customers must be visited by more than one vehicle at the same time. A Generalized Variable Neighborhood Search (GVNS) algorithm is provided and composed of Random-Insertion heuristic, neighborhood structures, shaking procedure, Basic sequential Variable Neighborhood Descent (B-VND), and augmented evaluation function with dynamic penalties that are specifically tailored to the characteristics of the VRPTW-S. The parameters of our GVNS are tuned through a Design of Experiments (DoE) approach on randomly generated instances. The experimentation is conducted on two benchmark datasets with a total of 84 instances. Numerical results show that the GVNS outperforms the existing best-performing solving approaches in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and robustness. Among the 84 benchmark instances, the GVNS successfully attains 52 best-known solutions, including all 20 proven optimal solutions, and introduces 18 new best solutions.

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具有时间窗和同步的车辆路径问题的广义变邻域搜索算法

本文研究的问题是具有时间窗口和同步的车辆路径问题（VRPTW-S），它是车辆路径问题的一种变体，其中每个客户必须在特定的时间窗口内得到服务，并且某些客户必须同时由多辆车辆访问。针对VRPTW-S的特点，提出了一种广义变量邻域搜索（GVNS）算法，该算法由随机插入启发式算法、邻域结构算法、震动过程算法、基本顺序变量邻域下降算法（B-VND）和带动态惩罚的增广评价函数组成。我们的GVNS的参数是通过实验设计（DoE）方法对随机生成的实例进行调整的。实验在两个基准数据集上进行，总共有84个实例。数值结果表明，GVNS在有效性、效率和鲁棒性方面都优于现有的最佳求解方法。在84个基准实例中，GVNS成功地获得了52个最知名的解决方案，包括所有20个经过验证的最优解决方案，并引入了18个新的最佳解决方案。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Computers & Operations Research 工程技术-工程：工业

CiteScore

8.60

自引率

8.70%

发文量

292

审稿时长

8.5 months

期刊介绍： Operations research and computers meet in a large number of scientific fields, many of which are of vital current concern to our troubled society. These include, among others, ecology, transportation, safety, reliability, urban planning, economics, inventory control, investment strategy and logistics (including reverse logistics). Computers & Operations Research provides an international forum for the application of computers and operations research techniques to problems in these and related fields.