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A generalized assignment heuristic for vehicle routing
Author(s) -
Fisher Marshall L.,
Jaikumar Ramchandran
Publication year - 1981
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.3230110205
Subject(s) - vehicle routing problem , heuristics , heuristic , mathematical optimization , computer science , routing (electronic design automation) , order (exchange) , function (biology) , operations research , mathematics , computer network , finance , evolutionary biology , economics , biology
We consider a common variant of the vehicle routing problem in which a vehicle fleet delivers products stored at a central depot to satisfy customer orders. Each vehicle has a fixed capacity, and each order uses a fixed portion of vehicle capacity. The routing decision involves determining which of the demands will be satisfied by each vehicle and what route each vehicle will follow in servicing its assigned demand in order to minimize total delivery cost. We present a heuristic for this problem in which an assignment of customers to vehicles is obtained by solving a generalized assignment problem with an objective function that approximates delivery cost. This heuristic has many attractive features. It has outperformed the best existing heuristics on a sample of standard test problems. It will always find a feasible solution if one exists, something no other existing heuristic can guarantee. It can be easily adapted to accommodate many additional problem complexities. By parametrically varying the number of vehicles in the fleet, our method can be used to optimally solve the problem of finding the minimum size fleet that can feasibly service the specified demand.