A review of bio-inspired algorithms for vehicle routing

Abstract

This chapter reviews biologically inspired algorithms for solving a class of difficult combinatorial optimization problems known as vehicle routing problems, where least-cost collection or delivery routes are designed to serve a set of customers in a transportation network. From a methodological standpoint, the review includes evolutionary algorithms, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, neural networks, artificial immune systems and hybrids. From an application standpoint, the most popular vehicle routing variants are considered, starting with the classical vehicle routing problem with capacity constraints. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.