A constraint programming heuristic for a heterogeneous vehicle routing problem with split deliveries
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Date
2010
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Abstract
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.
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Constraint theory , Distribution of goods , Fleet operations , Vehicle routing , Vehicles , Constraint programming , Effective algorithms , Exact algorithms , Fast algorithms , Heterogeneous fleet , Heterogeneous vehicles , Programming: heuristic , Retail chains , Split delivery , Vehicle Routing Problems , Constraint programming