Tackling a VRP challenge to redistribute scarce equipment within time windows using metaheuristic algorithms

Abstract

This paper reports on the results of the VeRoLog Solver Challenge 2016-2017: the third solver challenge facilitated by VeRoLog, the EURO Working Group on Vehicle Routing and Logistics Optimization. The authors are the winners of second and third places, combined with members of the challenge organizing committee. The problem central to the challenge was a rich VRP: expensive and therefore scarce equipment was to be redistributed over customer locations within time windows. The difficulty was in creating combinations of pickups and deliveries that reduce the amount of equipment needed to execute the schedule, as well as the lengths of the routes and the number of vehicles used. This paper gives a description of the solution methods of the above-mentioned participants. The second place method involves sequences of 22 low level heuristics: each of these heuristics is associated with a transition probability to move to another low level heuristic. A randomly drawn sequence of these heuristics is applied to an initial solution, after which the probabilities are updated depending on whether

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