A constraint programming heuristic for a heterogeneous vehicle routing problem with split deliveries

Ozfirat P., Ozkarahan I.

Applied Artificial Intelligence, cilt.24, sa.4, ss.277-294, 2010 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 24 Sayı: 4
  • Basım Tarihi: 2010
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1080/08839511003715196
  • Dergi Adı: Applied Artificial Intelligence
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.277-294
  • Manisa Celal Bayar Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

This article considers fresh goods distribution of a retail chain store in Turkey. The problem is formulated as a vehicle routing problem with a heterogeneous fleet for which no exact algorithm has ever been designed to solve it. A fast and effective algorithm based on constraint programming is proposed for the solution. The procedure is tested on some of the benchmark problems in literature. The real-life case is first solved assuming that delivery of a customer cannot be split between vehicles. Then it is resolved considering split deliveries. Solutions of both strategies are compared with the current performance of the firm to determine a distribution strategy. Results indicate considerable improvement in the performance of the firm.