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Optimization of gas metering maintenance services: A multiobjective vehicle routing problem with a set of predefined overlapping time windows
Author(s) -
Cassettari Lucia,
Gaggero Mauro,
Saccaro Stefano
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
networks
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.977
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1097-0037
pISSN - 0028-3045
DOI - 10.1002/net.22044
Subject(s) - metering mode , heuristic , set (abstract data type) , mathematical optimization , vehicle routing problem , computer science , routing (electronic design automation) , integer (computer science) , integer programming , operations research , mathematics , engineering , computer network , mechanical engineering , programming language
Optimization of maintenance services of a company working in the gas metering sector is investigated. In particular, daily tasks of operators are optimized by exploiting the paradigm of vehicle routing problems with a set of predefined time windows that overlap one with the others and four competing objectives to take into account. First, an exact integer formulation is presented that can be solved only for a reduced number of customer sites to visit. Then, a heuristic approach is proposed to find approximate solutions with huge savings on the computational effort, also for high‐dimensional instances. Numerical results on both real and synthetic scenarios showcase the effectiveness of the approach.