Parallel independent simulated annealing searches to solve the VRPTW

Abstract

The vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) is a combinatorial optimization problem in which the number of vehicles and the total distance travelled by the vehicles are to be minimized. The objective of this work is to improve the parallel algorithm of independent searches to get a better accuracy of solutions to the problem. The accuracy of solutions is measure by their proximity to the best solution found so far. The algorithm of independent searches with constant length of the cooling stage (ISC) is proposed. The computational experiments were carried out on the R109, R110 and R202 test instances by Solomon. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.