A Memory Integrated Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm with Local Search for Vehicle Routing Problem with Backhauls and Time Windows

Abstract

The vehicle routing problem is a logistics problem which receives much attentions in logistics management. This paper presents a Memory integrated Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm (MABC) to solve the Vehicle Routing Problem with addition of Backhauls and Time Windows, known as the VRPBTW. In VRPBTW, a homogenous fleet of vehicles are utilized to deliver goods to linehaul customer set and pick up goods from backhaul customer set. Vehicle capacity, sequence of linehaul/backhaul and time windows are the three of major constraints for this problem. The VRPBTW’s objective is to determine the optimal routes with minimum of total distance that satisfies all constraints. The proposed algorithm was tested on Gelinas’s VRPBTW benchmark problems. MABC is developed by adding the memory to Artificial Bee Colony (ABC). The local search algorithms including λ-interchange and 2-opt* are utilized to search for the better solutions. The computational results show that MABC significantly yields the good solutions in terms of total travelling distance. Finally, it can be concluded that the performance of the proposed MABC algorithm is superior to the existing studies in term of quality solution.