A spatial and temporal bi-criteria parallel-savings-based heuristic algorithm for solving vehicle routing problems with time windows

Abstract

This paper proposes a spatial and temporal bi-criteria parallel-savings-based heuristic algorithm for solving vehicle-routing problems with time windows. The purpose of the algorithm is to reduce transportation costs and to satisfy the specific times, within time windows, which are required by customers. For evaluating the performance of the algorithm, two separate sets of time windows are created by generating data randomly. The test results reveal that both the preciseness and stability of the solutions perform much better than those based on the insertion method.