An inherited tabu search algorithm for the truck and trailer vehicle scheduling problem in iron and steel industry

Abstract

The truck and trailer vehicle scheduling problem (TTVSP) involves vehicles and products allocation when the products are transported from warehouse to dock yard. The TTVSP with multiple types of vehicles which can be assigned to different tasks more than one time is considered and the vehicle can also transport the products that don't absolutely suit it. For this TTVSP, the continuity of task and truck are also under the consideration based on the practical requirement. This problem is formulated as a mixed integer programming model to minimize the total cost by considering some practical issues. In this paper, the problem how to transport the last operation in appointed task is also analyzed and the property about the scheduling of last operation is put forward to optimize algorithm. An inherited composite neighborhood tabu search algorithm is developed to find a near-optimal scheduling where an initial solution is obtained based on the know-how knowledge. The results of experiment show that the proposed method could resolve the problem more effectively than current manual method. © 2009 ISIJ.