A Heuristic Method for Solving the Vehicle Routing Problem — Implementation and Graphics

Abstract

The vehicle routing problem (VRP) or vehicle scheduling problem appears in a large number of various practical situations concerning the distribution or collection of commodities which may be of physical or nonphysical nature. Furthermore a lot of problems can be formulated as VRPs. In this paper the applications of well known heuristics for solving the VRP on a PC are described with emphasis on their use in practice. For successfull applications of quantitative operations research methods beside efficient algorithms a comfortable handling of the problems and supporting facilities like graphics are required to visualize the resulting solutions. On the basis of the approved Savings-method in the course of some study-and diploma thesises a suitable editor as well as the graphic presentation of the routes was implemented and tested, thus showing for example the requirement of zooming-techniques for practical use. To incooperate the experience of practical men for the construction of satisfactory solutions, it seems to be evident, that the application of knowledge-based systems is forthcoming. In a first study with the expert-system-shell M.1 problems with these very promising opportunities of artificial intelligence tools are sketched.