A hybrid algorithm for vehicle routing problem with time windows and target time

The routing of a fleet of vehicles to service a set of customers is important in the field of goods distribution. Vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) is a well-known combinatorial problem. This article aims at studying the vehicle routing problem with time windows and target time (VRPTWTT). VRPTWTT involves the routing of a set of vehicles with limited capacity from a central depot to a set of geographically dispersed customers with known demands and predefined time windows as well as a target time. There are penalties associated with servicing either earlier or later than this target servicing time. The goal is to minimize the costs of transport and penalties of delay and ahead of time. Although VRPTWTT is a new variant of the VRP with time windows, the problem is not easy to solve, and it is also NP-hard. To solve the VRPTWTT, we propose a hybrid method combining Neighborhood search with Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm (ACO). Furthermore, when ACO is close to current optimal solution, neighborhood search is used to maintain the diversity of ACO and explore new solutions. First, we present a description of the hybrid method followed by computational results and the conclusion. © 2005 - 2017 JATIT & LLS. All rights reserved.