Capacitated Multi-depot Vehicle Routing Problem with Inter-depot Routes

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Abstract

In this paper, we study the multi-depot vehicle
routing problem with inter-depot routes, in which the vehicles can replenish at
intermediate depots. Vehicles leave the origin depot with load on-board and
serve customers until out of load. They may visit an intermediate depot to
replenish and finally return to the origin depot, completing their route. We
initiate a mathematical mixed integer programming model for this problem. The
objective of the problem is to find routes for vehicles at a minimal cost in terms
of total travel cost and replenishments cost at intermediate depots, without
violating the capacity constraints of the vehicles. The solution to the problem
is obtained through CPLEX solver in commercial software GAMS 23.5, Genetic
Algorithm and Tabu Search algorithms. Computational results indicate the
effectiveness of the proposed algorithms in terms of solution time and quality
of results.

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