Local search-based metaheuristics for the split delivery vehicle routing problem

Abstract

Abstract The split delivery vehicle routing problem is a variant of the standard vehicle routing problem where the single-visit assumption is waived and a customer might be served on more than one vehicle tour. In this article we report on a study where we have applied the standard local search-based metaheuristics using adaptations of the most widely used inter-tour and intra-tour exchange operators for solving the standard vehicle routing problem now allowing splitting and joining of deliveries. As we will show we could find new best solutions for 51 out of 57 benchmark instances, which have been defined for this problem class.