Local Search Heuristic for the Two-Echelon Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem in Educational Decision Support Systems

Abstract

This study focuses on developing a heuristic for Decision Support Systems (DSS) in e-commerce logistics education, specifically addressing the Two-Echelon Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (2E-CVRP). The 2E-CVRP involves using Urban Transshipment Points (UTPs) to optimize deliveries. To tackle the complexity of the 2E-CVRP, DSS can employ fast and effective techniques for visual problem-solving. Therefore, the objective of this work is to develop a local search heuristic to solve the 2E-CVRP quickly and efficiently for implementation in DSS. The efficiency of the heuristic is assessed through benchmarks from the literature and applied to real-world problems from a Brazilian e-commerce retailer, contributing to advancements in the 2E-CVRP approach and promoting operational efficiency in e-commerce logistics education. The heuristic yielded promising results, solving problems almost instantly, for instances in the literature on average in 1.06 s, with average gaps of 6.3% in relation to the best-known solutions and, for real problems with hundreds of customers, in 1.4 s, with gaps of 8.3%, demonstrating its effectiveness in achieving the study’s objectives.