The Vehicle Routing Problem with Service Level Constraints
Abstract
We consider a vehicle routing problem which seeks to minimize cost subject to service level constraints on several groups of deliveries. This problem captures some essential challenges faced by a logistics provider which operates transportation services for a limited number of partners and should respect contractual obligations on service levels. The problem also generalizes several important classes of vehicle routing problems with profits. To solve it, we propose a compact mathematical formulation, a branch-and-price algorithm, and a hybrid genetic algorithm with population management, which relies on problem-tailored solution representation, crossover and local search operators, as well as an adaptive penalization mechanism establishing a good balance between service levels and costs. Our computational experiments show that the proposed heuristic returns very high-quality solutions for this difficult problem, matches all optimal solutions found for small and medium-scale benchmark instances, and improves upon existing algorithms for two important special cases: the vehicle routing problem with private fleet and common carrier, and the capacitated profitable tour problem. The branch-and-price algorithm also produces new optimal solutions for all three problems.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1706.03097,
title = {The Vehicle Routing Problem with Service Level Constraints},
author = {Teobaldo Bulhões and Minh Hoàng Hà and Rafael Martinelli and Thibaut Vidal},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.03097},
year = {2017}
}