Solution to a Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem Using Heuristics and Firefly Algorithm

摘要

In the present day scenario most of the requirements of our day to day life are made by service providers to our footsteps. These services are door delivery off Pizza (Domino's Pizza) within a stipulated time limit, transportation service like office picking of employees or School Children, Milk man delivering milk door-to door, postal and logistic services like Ekart logistics, Blue Dart etc. In such services, service delivery and timely service are very important. These issues mainly require scheduling and routing of service vehicles. The Vehicle Routing problem (VRP) is a combinatorial optimization and integer programming problem seeking to service a number of customers with a fleet of vehicles. Objective of this problem is to minimize the time and distance travelled. Among the various types of VRP'S, Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem is the most important operational decision related to transport in Supply Chain Management. C-VRP is a Vehicle Routing problem which has an additional constraints like capacity constraint for a vehicle and variable demand at different nodes. Service Providers must plan in such a way that service is delivered to customers at right location to a right person at right time to draw the attention of Customer's satisfaction. In this present work a real time data from a logistic company is collected and evaluated using Heuristic Algorithms like Clarke and Wright Savings Algorithm, Sweep Algorithm and Holmes and Parker Algorithm and results are compared with state-of-art techniques, which shows that performance of Firefly Algorithm (F.A) is feasible for solving this Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem.