Heuristi

s for Vehi le Routing Problem with Time

Windows


K. Q. Zhu, K. C. Tan, L. H. Lee

De ember 10, 1999

Abstra t

This paper do uments our investigation into various

heuristi methods to solve Vehi le Routing Problem

7
6

with Time Windows (VRPTW) to optimal or near

optimal solutions. The obje tive of the problem is to

2

serve a number of ustomers within predened time

windows at minimum ost, without violating the a-

Depot

pa ity and total trip time onstraints for ea h vehi le.

The heuristi s we are exploring here are mainly third

generation Arti ial Intelligent (AI) algorithms su h
as

-Inter hange,

Simulated Annealing (SA), and

10

12

Tabu Sear h (TS). Based on the original SA theory

proposed by Kirkpatri k and the work by Thangiah,

11

we update the ooling s heme and develop a fast SA

heuristi . One of the variants of Glover's TS, Stri t

Figure 1: A Vehi le Routing Problem

Tabu, is evaluated and rst used for VRPTW, with

the help of both re en y and frequen y measures. We
applied ea h of the heuristi s developed to Solomon's

1, 2, ... , K-1}, and N+1 ustomers, C={0, 1, 2,

..., N}. For simpli ity, we denote depot as ustomer

56 VRPTW 100- ustomer instan es, and yielded 17

solutions better than or equivalent to the best solution ever published for these problems. This paper is

0. Ea h ar in the network orresponds to a onne -

also among the rst to do ument the implementation

tion between two nodes. A route is dened as starting

of all three advan ed sear h methods for VRPTW,

from the depot, going through a number of ustomers

together with their omprehensive results.

and ending at the depot.

Keywords

vehi le routing problem, time windows,

ombinatorial optimization, heuristi s, simulated annealing, tabu sear h.

The number of routes in

the tra network is equal to the number of vehi-

les used, that is,

K.

Therefore, exa tly

ar s leave the depot and

A ost

ij

dire ted

ar s return to the depot.

and a travel time

tij

are asso iated with

ea h ar of the network. Every ustomer in the net-

Introdu tion

work must be visited only on e by one of the vehi les.

Sin e ea h vehi le has a limited apa ity

The Vehi le Routing Problem with Time Windows is

has a varying demand

V, a spe ial node

ustomers C to be visited,

given by a set of identi al vehi les

alled the depot, a set of

vehi les,

mi , qk must be greater than or

equal to the summation of all demands on the route

traveled by that vehi le

a dire ted network onne ting the depot and the ustomers. Let us assume there are

qk (identi al

for all vehi les in the question), and ea h ustomer

k.

On the other hand, any

ustomer must be servi ed within a pre-dened time

V={0,

interval, limited by an earliest arrival time and latest

 Kenny

Qili Zhu, Dept. CS, National University of Singapore. Email: kzhu omp.nus.edu.sg
y Kay Chen Tan, Dept. EE, National University of Singapore. Email: eletank nus.edu.sg
z Loo Hay Lee, Dept. ISE, National University of Singapore.
Email: iseleelhnus.edu.sg

arrival time.

Vehi les arriving later than the latest

arrival time are penalized while those arriving earlier

than the earliest arrival time in ur waiting. Vehi les
are also supposed to omplete their individual routes
within a total route time whi h is essentially the time

window of the depot.

Lo al

Sear h

-

with

Inter hange
2

An Initial Solution

The ee tiveness of any iterative lo al sear h method

is determined by the e ien y of the generation

Most heuristi sear h strategies involves nding an

me hanism and the way the neighborhood is sear hed.

initial feasible solution and then improving on that

Introdu ed

Here we make use of

ti (PFIH),

Push-Forward Insertion Heuris-

by

PFIH starts a new route by sele ting an initial us-

into a new

route is as follows:

where
and

pj

(1)

pi is the polar angle of the ustomer onsidered

is the polar angle of the last visited ustomer

in the last formed route. The unrouted ustomer with

the lowest ost is sele ted as the rst ustomer to be
visited. The polar oordinate angle of the ustomer

Rp

p.

and

is a
A

Rq

-

is

ording to the following order without repetition:

with respe t to the depot in (1) is normalized in terms

R(1) , R(2) ), ..., (R(1) , R(K ) ), (R(2) , R(3) ), ...,

K (K 1)
(R (K 1) , R (K ) ). A total number Ck;2 =
2
of dierent pair of routes (Rp; Rq ) are examined to
(

of the distan e. This normalization allows omparison of the distan e, latest deadline and angular value
of the ustomer in ommon units. The weights for the
three riteria were derived empiri ally and were set as

 = 0.7,  = 0.2, = 0.1.

= fR ; :::; Rp; :::; Rq ; :::; Rk g, where Rp

S1  Rp of size jS1 j  
by another subset S2  Rq of size jS2 j  , to get
0
the two new route sets Rp = (Rp
S1 ) [ S2 and
0
Rq = (Rq S2 ) [ S1 , and a new neighboring solution
S 0 = fR1 ; :::; Rp0 ; :::; Rq0 ; :::; Rk g. The neighborhood
N (S ) of a given solution S is the set of all neighbors
{S' } generated by the -inter hange method for a
given .
Let the permutation  be the order of vehi le indi es
in a given solution S = fR1 ; :::; Rp ; :::; Rq ; :::; Rk g
(e.g.  (p) = p, 8p 2[0, K-1 ). An ordered sear h sele ts all possible ombination of pairs (Rp ; Rq ) a -

into this route in terms of time. The ost fun tion for

jpi pj j )t )
360 i

-

a repla ement of subset

eeded or it is not feasible to insert another ustomer

toi + li + ((

inter hange between a pair of routes

route until either the apa ity of the vehi le is ex-

Christodes[11,

set of ustomers servi ed by a vehi le route

tomer and then inserting ustomers into the urrent

Cost(C ) =

&

Given a feasible solution for the VRPTW represented

as a method to reate initial route onguration. The

C1

Osman

generation me hanism is based on us-

tomer inter hange between sets of vehi le routes.

rst introdu ed by Solomon[13 in 1987

inserting a ustomer as the rst node

by

inter hange

solution using lo al or global optimization te hniques.

dene a y le of sear h .

On e the rst ustomer is se-

le ted for the urrent route, the heuristi sele ts from

the set of unrouted ustomers the ustomer

j*

whi h

minimizes the total insertion ost between every edge

Depot

Depot

Depot

Depot

Depot

Depot

Depot

BEFORE

k l

{ , } in the urrent route without violating the time

and apa ity onstraints. The insertion ost of other
nodes in a route, as opposed to Eq. (1) is given by

Insertion ost of Ci = Dk + Wk + Ok + Tk

(2)

 was set to 1% of the total distan e Dk . When al ulating the penalty weight fa tors  and  in (2),
 was set to 10% of Dk and  to 1% of Dk . The

AFTER

penalty fa tors were hosen in this manner to allow

Depot

penalty relative to the total distan e traveled by the

vehi le. The ustomer

k*

position between {

j* is inserted in the least ost

l* } in the urrent route if it

Figure 2: An Operation (2, 1)

is valid, and the sele tion pro ess is repeated until no

further ustomers an be inserted.

For heuristi s based on a des ent algorithm the same

At this stage, a

new route is reated and the above is repeated until

permutation

all ustomers are routed. The a tual number of vehi-

ompleted.

le deployed,

= 2 for the neighboring sear h.

K,

is determined by the heuristi , and

is used after ea h y le of sear h is

We onsider the ase of

The

 = 1 and 
-inter hange

it provides an upper bound for the number of routes

method denes a series of insertion and ex hange op-

in the solution.

erators. The operator (0, 1) on routes (

Rp , Rq ) indi-

 ates a shift of one ustomer from route

to route

p.

using the

-inter hange me hanism for a given num1

The operators (1, 0), (2, 0) and (0, 2) indi ate shifting

ber of iterations .

of ustomers between two routes. The operator (1, 1)

the initial feasible solution. In the worst ase, LSD

R p , Rq )

or (2, 2) on routes (

q,

and

of the initial solution, and if no better moves an be

Figure 2 illustrates one of the operations.

realized the algorithm will exit after a number of it-

of one or two ustomers between route

so forth.

is only able to sear h thoroughly a 2-neighborhood

indi ates an ex hange

The LSD result is dependent on

and

erations.

Note we have dened that (2, 0) shifts two adja ent

nodes in the route, and so on. In this way, all these

Rp , i, Rq ,

operators have only four operants ea h: (

j ),

where

and

are positions where nodes will be

removed and re-inserted.

Simulated Annealing

After a solution is generated a riterion is required for

ation te hnique that nds its origin in statisti al

strategy will sele t the rst

First-Best (FB)
solution in S' in N (S )

Simulated Annealing (SA)

a epting or reje ting a move. The

me hani s[10.

Global-Best
(GB) strategy will sear h all solutions S' in N (S ) in
the neighborhood of S and sele t the one whi h will

often ooled very slowly, whi h allows them time to

result in the maximum de rease in ost with respe t

ombinatorial optimizations with the states of the

to a given ost fun tion. For FB strategy, the order

solids orresponding to the feasible solution, the en-

of sear hing the 2-neighborhood is (0, 1), (1, 0), (1,

ergy at ea h state to the improvement in obje tive

in the neighborhood of

is

sto hasti

relax-

In annealing pro ess, to avoid the

meta-stable states produ ed by quen hing, metals are

that results in a de rease in

ost with respe t to a ost fun tion. The

order themselves into stable, stru turally strong, low

energy ongurations. This analogy an be used in

1), (0, 2), (2, 0), (2, 1), (1, 2) and (2, 2) on any given

fun tion and the minimum energy being the optimal

pairs to generate neighbors. The order does not mat-

solution[8.

ter in GB ase. Global-Best usually a hieves better

At ea h step of the simulation algorithm, a new state

results than First-Best be ause it keeps tra k of all

of the system is onstru ted from the urrent state

the improving moves, but is more expensive omputationally.

by giving a random displa ement to a randomly se-

On the other hand FB is a blind sear h

le ted parti le. If the energy asso iated with this new

that a epts the rst best result. But that is not al-

state was lower than the energy of urrent state the

ways the ase. Figure 3 is su h an ex eption. Follow-

displa ement was a epted, that is, the new state be-

ing the prin iple of GB strategy, the algorithm will

omes the urrent state. If the new state had an en-

move to point B after a sear h of its 2-neighborhood,

ergy higher by

and will inevitably be trapped in a lo al optimum.

FB strategy, however, may enable the sear h to jump

joules, the probability of hanging

exp(

to point A rst and subsequently onverge to a real

optimum.

F(S)

the urrent state to the new state is

, where

Initial solution
from PFIH and
its 2-neighborhood

is the

d
)
kT

Boltzmann onstant

(3)

and

is the ab-

solute temperature at present. This basi step an be

metropometropolis loop.

repeated indenitely, whi h is known as a

lis step.

The pro edure is alled a

It an be shown that this method of generating ur-

FB goes here

rent states led to a distribution of states in whi h the

probability of a given state with energy

Global optimum

urrent state is

GB goes here
Local optimum

ei =kT )
Pexp(
:
exp(
ej =kT )
j

This probability fun tion is known as

sity.

Figure 3: A Case where FB is Superior to GB

to be the

(4)

Boltzmann den-

One of its hara teristi s is that for very high

temperatures, ea h state has almost equal han es of

being the urrent state.

-inter hange

ei

At low temperatures only

method

states with low energies have a high probability of

(LSD) starts from an initial feasible solution obtained

1 Iteration is dened as a valid hange of one solution state

to another .

The

Lo al Sear h Des ent

by the PFIH. The PFIH solution is further improved

being the urrent state. These probabilities are de-

espe ially true if the global optimum in a problem is

rived for a never ending exe uting of the metropolis

lo ated very distant to the orresponding PFIH ini-

loop.

tial solutions. In that ase SA may not have enough

energy to traverse that far, given the limited number

In our modied version of SA, the algorithm starts

of temperature resets.

with a relatively good solution resulting from PFIH.

Initial temperature is set at

Ts

de reased by

Tk =

= 100, and is slowly

Tk 1
1 +  Tk

5
(5)

Tk

and

is a small time onstant. The square root of

Tk

Tabu Sear h (TS) is a memory based sear h strategy,

where

is the urrent temperature at iteration

Tabu Sear h

originally proposed by Glover[6, to guide the lo al

sear h method to ontinue its sear h beyond a lo al

optimum. Our design of TS for VRPTW, known as

is introdu ed in the denominator to speed up the

Stri t Tabu, or S-TABU, ombines short term re en y

ool pro ess. Here we use a simple monotonously de-

log k s heme. It is

memory and long term frequen y memory. We have

reasing fun tion to repla e the 1/

reated a spe ial multi-fun tional list stru ture that

found that our s heme, although onverges sooner to

serve both purposes.

zero, gives fairly good results in mu h less time. The

algorithm attempts solutions in the neighborhood of

When this list stru ture is used as a FIFO queue it is

the urrent solution randomly or systemati ally and

al ulates the probability of moving to those solutions

tion . One is the re ently made moves. The moves

a ording to:

have su h a stru ture:

P (a epting a move) = exp(

):

where

=
C 0 (S ) C (S ), C(S ) is the ost of the urrent solution
and C'(S) is the ost of the new solution. If
<0,
This is a modied version of Eq.

that stores two kinds of re en y informa-

hR ; node1; position1; R ; node2; position2i

(6)

Tk

Tabu List

node1

(3), where

R1

and

R2

(8)

are two routes under operation,

is a node from

R1 and position1

position of node1. Likewise for

node2

is the original
and

position2.

Another re en y information stored in Tabu List is

the move is always warranted. One an see that as

the solution ongurations. Every solution that has

temperature ools down, the probability of a ept-

been re ently en ountered is oded into an integer

ing a non- ost-saving move is getting exponentially

string. If we have the following solution:

smaller. When the temperature has gone to the nal

temperature

Tf

= 0:001 or there is no more feasible

moves in the neighborhood, we reset the temperature

to

Tr = Max(Tr =2; Tb )

(7)

Tr is the reset temperature, and was originally

to Ts , and Tb is the temperature at whi h the

Route No. 1 is

0 -> 3 -> 2 -> 4 -> 5 -> 0

Route No. 2 is

0 -> 10 -> 6 -> 1 -> 12 -> 11 -> 0

Route No. 3 is

0 -> 9 -> 8 -> 7 -> 0

where
set

The oded integer string is then

best urrent solution was found. Final temperature

h3 2 4 5 0 10 6 1 12 11 098 70i :

is not set at zero be ause as temperature de reases

to innitesimally lose to zero, there is virtually zero

(9)

probability of a epting a non-improving move. Thus

The zeros are there to delimit the routes. The total

a nal temperature not equal but lose to zero is

ost of this solution is also atta hed to the string.

more realisti .

The lifetime of the tabu moves and tabu solutions

To sear h a lo al neighborhood, the

a global best solution is found, a 2-inter hange (GB)

Tabu List Size

(TLS). In this paper, we x the TLS at 10. The Tabu

pro edure is exe uted to sear h for possible elite so-

List also employs a frequen y measure that ounts the

on the Tabu List is governed by the

2-inter hange approa h was adopted. And every time

lutions around it. The pro edure terminates after a

number of times ea h of the tabu moves and solutions

number of resets.

have been attempted by the sear h.

High tabu-hit

frequen y implies the sear h has been aught in a

In general, our SA implementation is a simple and fast

lo al optimum and hen e some a tion has to be taken.

algorithm that solves many VRPTWs to near optima.

Candidate List,

Due to the Global Best approa h in lo al neighbor-

Another list stru ture in S-TABU is

hood sear h, the algorithm is able to result in stable

whi h employs longer term memory. This list stores

lo al optimal solutions almost at all times.

the

This is

elite solutions

the system has dis overed in the

sear h pro ess, also in integer string form like (9),

stops if a total number of iteration of the present so-

but ranked a ording to the total ost atta hed to

lution has been rea hed, or diversi ation failed as no

the string, instead of a queue. An item on the Can-

feasible hops an be made. To ensure that the global

didate List remains there as long as it has not been

best solution is indeed the optimum in its neighbor-

intensied. On e in a while, some of these elite solu-

hood, we apply 2-inter hange (GB) at the end of the

tions may be visited by other paths and be ome tabu.

program.

The size of the Candidate List an be variable, but is

generally twi e the size of Tabu List.

S-TABU begins with an initial solution obtained from

PFIH. This solution is

intensied

by undergoing a 2-

Computation

Results

and

Comparisons

inter hange (GB) pro edure. As the urrent solution

is being updated, the moves involved and the solution

We ondu ted most of the tests on a Pentium II 266

itself are also being opied to the Tabu List to prevent y les or dupli ations. If the urrent solution is a

MMX industrial Personal Computer with 32M RAM.

new global best, it is also opied to the elite list for fu-

Be ause of the varying nature of the algorithms de-

ture exploration. The intensi ation terminates when

veloped, the duration of tests is also varying. For

the entire

inter hange LSD (GB), the algorithm goes up to 20

N2 (S ) has been sear hed without any im-

-

proved solutions or the maximum tabu-hit frequen y

iterations, but may terminate earlier if the lo al opti-

has been rea hed.

mum is en ountered. We did not spe ify the number

of iterations for the SA to run, instead we spe ify the

Depot

number of resets that an be made before the program

Depot

terminates. The parameter for SA is set as follows:

Ts

BEFORE
Depot

= 100, Tf = 0:001,  = 0:5, R = 3 (number of

resets). Under su h settings, the ee tive number of

Depot

iterations for SA ranges from 500 to 700, depending

on the input. Our S-TABU program has to undergo
at least 500 iterations before it terminates. Be ause
omplexity arises from Tabu List operations and the

Depot

Depot

more extensive sear h that TS guarantees, S-TABU

takes the longest time to omplete on average.

AFTER
Depot

All three heuristi s were tested with 56 Solomon's

Depot

VRPTW instan es[13 whi h are 100- ustomer problem sets.

Figure 4: A Relink Operation

The 56 problems are ategorized into 6

lasses, namely C1, C2, R1, R2, RC1 and RC2. Problems whi h fall into C ategories are lustered data,
meaning nodes are lustered either geographi ally or

After one round of intensi ation, the urrent solution

in terms of time windows.

is believed to have rea hed the optimum of

its neighborhood.

To

diversify

the solution, the al-

RC ategories are hybrid problems that have the fea-

gorithm then makes a series of random hops by the

tures of both C and R ategories.

operations (2, 0), (2, 2), (2, 1), and relinking. Relink-

dows for the depot whereas the rest problem sets have

exibility, and is illustrated in Figure 4. The hop to a

wider time windows for the depot. A snap ompar-

new solution is only granted if this move and resulting

ison of the heuristi s is tabulated in Table 1, whi h

is not tabu. At all times, a global best solution

always overrides the tabu restri tion, whi h is the

piration riterion.

In addition, C1,

R1 and RC1 problem sets have narrower time win-

ing is a new operation introdu ed here to give more

new

Problems from R ate-

gories are uniformly distributed data and those from

shows the average osts obtained by ea h heuristi

as-

method on all 6 ategories and average CPU times

At every su essful random hop,

asso iated with the osts.

the new solution is re orded in the Candidate List

and ranked for further lo al intensi ation. After a

It ompares the average total osts and average CPU

number of iterations, the diversi ation pro ess ends

time for ea h of the algorithms implemented in all 6

with a simple pro edure that sele ts the least ost

ategories of problems. In general TS is the most ef-

solution whi h is not a tabu from the elite list and

fe tive heuristi , solving the largest number of ben h-

updates the urrent solution with this elite solution.

mark problems to optima and a hieving the least av-

Based on this new solution, a new round of intensi-

erage total ost in almost all ategories. However the

ation and diversi ation is triggered. The algorithm

omputation time is about 20 times that of SA and

Methods
C1
C2
R1
R2
RC1
RC2

2-INT

SA

TABU

heuristi what is generi enough to solve problems of

all types, instead they are inevitably problem spe i .

965

943

874

25

84

557

We have obtained 17 new best known results by the

644

new heuristi s.

780

766

It an be seen that our algorithms,

espe ially Tabu Sear h did very well with lustered

55

166

1885

1469

1422

1292

problem sets C1 and C2. Many of the results obtained

for these two lasses are already optimal, proved by

46

78

1076

1330

1279

1097

Lagrangean relaxation[9 and other mathemati pro-

98

217

3323

gramming methods. However, our methods are less

1680

1657

1471

su essful with homogeneously distributed data. We

49

63

1016

believe that set partitioning algorithms or other lus-

1700

1642

1331

tering algorithms an be in orporated into our heuris-

60

146

3217

ti s to improve the results.

Table 1: A Snap Comparison of the Heuristi s

Note: The

number at top of ea h ell is the average total

ost; the number at the bottom is the average CPU time

in se onds asso iated with the type of problem.

Con lusion

almost 40 times that of 2-INT. SA is very fast and

oers reasonably good solutions. All three heuristi s

The implementations of

tend to give better results to lustered data. The or-

-inter hange

is a basi

orner stone of the more omplex heuristi algo-

relation between the number of vehi les required and

rithms later.

the total ost in urred in a solution is not straightfor-

It learly denes the meaning of

-

neighborhood and the operators to explore su h a

ward. Fewer number of routes an in ur more ost,

neighborhood.

espe ially in homogeneous data (R lass problems).

The method is simple and straight-

forward but useful in almost all kinds of lo al sear h

R109, R201, R202 and R203 are examples of su h

pro edures.

instan es.

Thangiah has not been able to dene

learly the operation (2, 0) and (2, 1) in his papers.

Prob.

2-INT

SA

TS

New Best

C1

+15.9%

+13.6%

+4.3%

6/9

C2

+32.3%

+28.5%

+5.6%

5/8

R1

+23.2%

+19.2%

+5.8%

0/12

R2

+29.5%

+24.8%

+3.3%

4/11

RC1

+23.2%

+21.1%

+6%

1/8

RC2

+47.0%

+41.9%

+11.8%

1/8

And these points are laried in Se tion 3 with gures

and literal des ription.

Our new denition is om-

plete and easy to realize. Theoreti ally a sequen e of

2-inter hange operations are able to bring the urrent
solution to anywhere in the solution spa e.

We next studied Simulated Annealing and Tabu

Sear h, two of the most talked-about ombinatorial

Table 2:

optimization strategies in the 90's. Our implementa-

Relative Average Cost for Our Heuristi s

Against the Best Known

tion of SA takes a systemati approa h in lo al sear h.

Note:

This table ompares the minimal osts between

It has been proved in the experiments that su h sys-

the published best solutions and our average solutions.

temati sear h is more e ient than random walk.

The last olumn shows the number of new best solution

SA is a good ompromise of speed and performan e.

obtained against the number of problems in ea h ategory.

Our stri t Tabu sear h (S-TABU) algorithm is one of

the many ways to employ the sophisti ated memory-

Table 2 shows the per entage in rease of average to-

based meta-heuristi Tabu Sear h (TS). S-TABU was

tal distan e of our solutions against the best known

able to solve many of the Solomon problem sets to op-

solutions in the literature, as well as the number of

tima in an average of 1500 se onds on a Pentium II

solutions we have obtained that are better than or

266 MMX PC. This apparently beneted from the

equivalent to the best solutions in the literature. The

use of longer term memory and diversi ation strat-

published best known solutions are not obtained by

egy. Many authors have implemented their versions

one or a parti ular lass of methods, therefore, the ta-

of TS as well, but none of them in the literature pro-

ble demonstrates the position of our algorithms in all

du ed as many best solutions as we did at the time

VRPTW methods. It is seen that our TS is already

of writing. However, our S-TABU still la ks some of

lose to the best ways of solving VRPTW. However

the important features of TS, su h as inuen e. The

we an also dedu e that there is thus far no single

possibility of further improvement is almost ertain.

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