A multi-compartment vehicle routing problem in cold-chain distribution

摘要

The vehicle routing problem derived from a real cold-chain distribution company is studied in this paper. It is formulated as a multi-compartment vehicle routing problem with some practical constraints. A mathematical model is provided and an adaptive large neighborhood search (ALNS) algorithm is developed to solve the real-world problems. The computational experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the ALNS algorithm compared with the manual method based mostly on experience. In addition, a sensitivity analysis provides valuable managerial insights for the decision-makers. Crown Copyright (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.