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A Tabu Search Heuristic for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Soft Time Windows

Author

Listed:
  • Éric Taillard

    (Istituto Dalle Molle di Studi sull'Intelligenza Artificiale (IDSIA), Corso Elvezia 36, CH-6900 Lugano, Switzerland)

  • Philippe Badeau

    (Centre Universitaire des Sciences et Techniques, Université Blaise Pascal, Clermont Ferrand II, Campus Universitaire des Cézeaux, 63174 Aubière Cedex, France)

  • Michel Gendreau

    (Centre de recherche sur les transports, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada and Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada)

  • François Guertin

    (Centre de recherche sur les transports, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada and Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada)

  • Jean-Yves Potvin

    (Centre de recherche sur les transports, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada and Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada)

Abstract

This paper describes a tabu search heuristic for the vehicle routing problem with soft time windows. In this problem, lateness at customer locations is allowed although a penalty is incurred and added to the objective value. By adding large penalty values, the vehicle routing problem with hard time windows can be addressed as well. In the tabu search, a neighborhood of the current solution is created through an exchange procedure that swaps sequences of consecutive customers (or segments) between two routes. The tabu search also exploits an adaptive memory that contains the routes of the best previously visited solutions. New starting points for the tabu search are produced through a combination of routes taken from different solutions found in this memory. Many best-known solutions are reported on classical test problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Éric Taillard & Philippe Badeau & Michel Gendreau & François Guertin & Jean-Yves Potvin, 1997. "A Tabu Search Heuristic for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Soft Time Windows," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 170-186, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:31:y:1997:i:2:p:170-186
    DOI: 10.1287/trsc.31.2.170
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