Journal Article

Using biased randomization for solving the two-dimensional loading vehicle routing problem with heterogeneous fleet

Dominguez, Oscar, Juan, Angel A., Barrios, Barry, Agustin, Alba, Faulin, Javier

2016

Overview

This paper discusses the two-dimensional loading capacitated vehicle routing problem (2L-CVRP) with heterogeneous fleet (2L-HFVRP). The 2L-CVRP can be found in many real-life situations related to the transportation of voluminous items where two-dimensional packing restrictions have to be considered, e.g.: transportation of heavy machinery, forklifts, professional cleaning equipment, etc. Here, we also consider a heterogeneous fleet of vehicles, comprising units of different capacities, sizes and fixed/variable costs. Despite the fact that heterogeneous fleets are quite ubiquitous in real-life scenarios, there is a lack of publications in the literature discussing the 2L-HFVRP. In particular, to the best of our knowledge no previous work discusses the non-oriented 2L-HFVRP, in which items are allowed to be rotated during the truck-loading process. After describing and motivating the problem, a literature review on related work is performed. Then, a multi-start algorithm based on biased randomization of routing and packing heuristics is proposed. A set of computational experiments contribute to illustrate the scope of our approach, as well as to show its efficiency.

• Publisher: Springer US,Springer,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Algorithms / Business and Management / Combinatorics / Energy consumption / Engineering research / Fork lift trucks / Heuristic / Industrial equipment / Literature reviews / Operations research / Operations Research/Decision Theory / Packing problem / Randomization / Route optimization / Route selection / Studies / Theory of Computation / Transportation / Two dimensional / Vehicles / Wireless communications