Vehicle routing problem and simulated annealing

Abstract

The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is concerned with finding efficient routes for a fleet of vehicles/buses to pick up employees from pre-determined bus stops and bring them to the work place. We believe that the VRP will increase in importance as the fuel prices rise and as the extent to which an organization will subsidize the transportation decreases in the face of increased competition as a result of liberalization- In this paper, two heuristics, both based on iterative improvement of an initial solution, have been developed. One of the routines has been developed using Simulated Annealing. We compare these routines with some existing routines and the results are favourable.