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Existing deep reinforcement learning (DRL) based methods for solving the capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) intrinsically cope with homogeneous vehicle fleet, in which the fleet is assumed as repetitions of a single vehicle. Hence,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-08 Jingwen Li , Yining Ma , Ruize Gao , Zhiguang Cao , Andrew Lim , Wen Song , Jie Zhang

The neural combinatorial optimization (NCO) method has shown great potential for solving routing problems of intelligent transportation systems without requiring expert knowledge. However, existing constructive NCO methods still struggle to…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-26 Changliang Zhou , Xi Lin , Zhenkun Wang , Xialiang Tong , Mingxuan Yuan , Qingfu Zhang

Recent work on deep clustering has found new promising methods also for constrained clustering problems. Their typically pairwise constraints often can be used to guide the partitioning of the data. Many problems however, feature…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-22 Jonas K. Falkner , Lars Schmidt-Thieme

Vehicle routing problems (VRPs) are central to combinatorial optimization with significant practical implications. Recent advancements in neural combinatorial optimization (NCO) have demonstrated promising results by leveraging neural…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-08 Han Li , Fei Liu , Zhenkun Wang , Qingfu Zhang

In recent years, reinforcement learning (RL) methods have emerged as a promising approach for solving combinatorial problems. Among RL-based models, POMO has demonstrated strong performance on a variety of tasks, including variants of the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-08-13 Szymon Jakubicz , Karol Kuźniak , Jan Wawszczak , Paweł Gora

The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is a fundamental challenge in logistics management research, given its substantial influence on transportation efficiency, cost minimization, and service quality. As a combinatorial optimization problem,…

Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science · Computer Science 2025-07-01 Souad Abdoune , Menouar Boulif

The traditional Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) minimizes the total distance of the routes under the capacity constraints of the vehicles. But more often, the objective involves multiple criteria including not only the total…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-08-31 Jayanta Mandi , Rocsildes Canoy , Víctor Bucarey , Tias Guns

We present a novel framework that combines machine learning with mixed-integer optimization to solve the Capacitated Location-Routing Problem (CLRP). The CLRP is a classical NP-hard problem that integrates strategic facility location with…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-24 Waquar Kaleem , Doyoung Lee , Changhyun Kwon , Anirudh Subramanyam

Since the 1990s, considerable empirical work has been carried out to train statistical models, such as neural networks (NNs), as learned heuristics for combinatorial optimization (CO) problems. When successful, such an approach eliminates…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-01-21 Orit Davidovich , Shimrit Shtern , Segev Wasserkrug , Nimrod Megiddo

Neural combinatorial optimization (NCO) is a promising learning-based approach for solving challenging combinatorial optimization problems without specialized algorithm design by experts. However, most constructive NCO methods cannot solve…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-01-17 Fu Luo , Xi Lin , Fei Liu , Qingfu Zhang , Zhenkun Wang

Model-free deep-reinforcement-based learning algorithms have been applied to a range of COPs~\cite{bello2016neural}~\cite{kool2018attention}~\cite{nazari2018reinforcement}. However, these approaches suffer from two key challenges when…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-01 Nasrin Sultana , Jeffrey Chan , Tabinda Sarwar , A. K. Qin

The Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (CVRPTW) is a classic NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem widely applied in logistics distribution and transportation management. Its complexity stems from the constraints of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-22 Linjiang Cao , Maonan Wang , Xi Xiong

The vehicle routing problem is a well known class of NP-hard combinatorial optimisation problems in literature. Traditional solution methods involve either carefully designed heuristics, or time-consuming metaheuristics. Recent work in…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-06-15 Harshad Khadilkar

Machine learning has been adapted to help solve NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. One prevalent way is learning to construct solutions by deep neural networks, which has been receiving more and more attention due to the high…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-07 Chengrui Gao , Haopu Shang , Ke Xue , Dong Li , Chao Qian

In the last decades, the classical Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP), i.e., assigning a set of orders to vehicles and planning their routes has been intensively researched. As only the assignment of order to vehicles and their routes is already…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2022-01-13 Veronika Lesch , Maximilian König , Samuel Kounev , Anthony Stein , Christian Krupitzer

Solving NP-hard/complete combinatorial problems with neural networks is a challenging research area that aims to surpass classical approximate algorithms. The long-term objective is to outperform hand-designed heuristics for…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2024-02-14 Dobrik Georgiev , Danilo Numeroso , Davide Bacciu , Pietro Liò

Learning heuristics for vehicle routing problems (VRPs) has gained much attention due to the less reliance on hand-crafted rules. However, existing methods are typically trained and tested on the same task with a fixed size and distribution…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-21 Jianan Zhou , Yaoxin Wu , Wen Song , Zhiguang Cao , Jie Zhang

Combinatorial optimization has found applications in numerous fields, from aerospace to transportation planning and economics. The goal is to find an optimal solution among a finite set of possibilities. The well-known challenge one faces…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-06-03 Quentin Cappart , Thierry Moisan , Louis-Martin Rousseau , Isabeau Prémont-Schwarz , Andre Cire

This paper addresses the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) by comparing classical and quantum Reinforcement Learning (RL) approaches. An Advantage Actor-Critic (A2C) agent is implemented in classical, full quantum, and hybrid…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-02-06 Eva Andrés

Many relevant problems in industrial settings result in NP-hard optimization problems, such as the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) or its reduced variant, the Travelling Salesperson Problem (TSP). Even with today's most powerful…