Abstract
In this paper we propose a hybrid approach for solving vehicle routing problems. The main idea is to combine an Ant System (AS) with a problem specific constructive heuristic, namely the well known Savings algorithm. This difiers from previous approaches, where the subordinate heuristic was the Nearest Neighbor algorithm initially proposed for the TSP. We compare our approach with some other classic, powerful meta-heuristics and showthat our results are competitive.
Keywords
- Travelling Salesman Problem
- Neighborhood Size
- Vehicle Route Problem
- Vehicle Route
- Pheromone Concentration
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
References
Garey, M. R. and Johnson, D. S.: Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP Completeness. W. H. Freeman & Co., NewY ork (1979)
Colorni, A., Dorigo, M. and Maniezzo, V.: Distributed Optimization by Ant Colonies. In: Varela, F. and Bourgine, P. (Eds.): Proc. Europ. Conf. Artificial Life. Elsevier, Amsterdam (1991)
Costa, D. and Hertz, A.: Ants can colour graphs. Journal of the Operational Research Society 48(3) (1997) 295–305
Stützle, T. and Dorigo, M.: ACO Algorithms for the Quadratic Assignment Problem. In: Corne, D., Dorigo, M. and Glover, F. (Eds.): NewIdeas in Optimization. Mc Graw-Hill, London (1999)
Dorigo, M. and Gambardella, L. M.: Ant Colony System: A cooperative learning approach to the Travelling Salesman Problem. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation 1(1) (1997) 53–66
Bullnheimer, B., Hartl, R. F. and Strauss, Ch.: A newrank based version of the ant system: a computational study. Central European Journal of Operations Research 7(1) (1999) 25–38
Bullnheimer, B., Hartl, R. F. and Strauss, Ch.: Applying the ant system to the vehicle routing problem. In: Voss, S., Martello, S., Osman, I. H. and Roucairol, C. (Eds.): Meta-Heuristics: Advances and Trends in Local Search Paradigms for Optimization. Kluwer, Boston (1999)
Bullnheimer, B., Hartl, R. F. and Strauss, Ch.: An improved ant system algorithm for the vehicle routing problem. Annals of Operations Research 89 (1999) 319–328
Gambardella, L. M., Taillard, E. and Agazzi, G.: MACS-VRPTW: A Multiple Ant Colony System for Vehicle Routing Problems with Time Windows. In: Corne, D., Dorigo, M. and Glover, F. (Eds.): NewIdeas in Optimization. McGraw-Hill, London (1999)
Gutjahr, W. J.: A graph-based Ant System and its convergence. Future Generation Computing Systems. 16 (2000) 873–888
Clarke, G. and Wright, J. W.: Scheduling of vehicles from a central depot to a number of delivery points. Operations Research 12 (1964) 568–581
Croes, G. A.: A method for solving Traveling Salesman Problems. Operations Research 6 (1958) 791–801
Christofides, N., Mingozzi, A. and Toth, P.: The vehicle routing problem. In: Christofides, N., Mingozzi, A., Toth, P. and Sandi, C. (Eds.): Combinatorial Optimization. Wiley, Chicester (1979)
Taillard, E. D.: Parallel iterative search methods for vehicle routing problems. Networks 23 (1993) 661–673
Rochat, Y. and Taillard, E. D.: Probabilistic Diversification and Intensification in Local Search for Vehicle Routing. Journal of Heuristics 1 (1995) 147–167
Rego, C. and Roucairol, C.: A parallel tabu search algorithm using ejection chains for the vehicle routing problem. In: Osman, I. H. and Kelly, J. (Eds.): Meta-Heuristics:Theory and Applications. Kluwer, Boston (1996)
Gendreau, M., Hertz, A. and Laporte, G.:A tabu search heuristic for the vehicle routing problem. Management Science 40 (1994) 1276–1290
Osman, I. H.: Metastrategy simulated annealing and tabu search algorithms for the vehicle routing problem. Annals of Operations Research 41 (1993) 421–451
Doerner, K. F., Hartl, R.F., and Reimann, M.: Are CompetANTS competent for problem solving-the case of a transportation problem. POM Working Paper 01/2001
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Doerner, K., Gronalt, M., Hartl, R.F., Reimann, M., Strauss, C., Stummer, M. (2002). SavingsAnts for the Vehicle Routing Problem. In: Cagnoni, S., Gottlieb, J., Hart, E., Middendorf, M., Raidl, G.R. (eds) Applications of Evolutionary Computing. EvoWorkshops 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2279. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46004-7_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46004-7_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-43432-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-46004-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive