Solution methods for the periodic petrol station replenishment problem

Abstract

Abstract: In this paper we introduce the Periodic Petrol Station Replenishment Problem (PPSRP) over a T-day planning horizon and describe four heuristic methods for its solution. Even though all the proposed heuristics belong to the common partitioning-then-routing paradigm, they differ in assigning the stations to each day of the horizon. The resulting daily routing problems are then solved exactly until achieving optimalization. Moreover, an improvement procedure is also developed with the aim of ensuring a better quality solution. Our heuristics are tested and compared in two real-life cases, and our computational results show encouraging improvements with respect to a human planning solution.