Exact and hyper‐heuristic solutions for the distribution‐installation problem from the VeRoLog 2019 challenge

Kheiri, Ahmed; Ahmed, Leena; Boyac?, Burak; Gromicho, Joaquim; Mumford, Christine; �zcan, Ender; Diriko�, Ali Selim

Abstract

This work tackles a rich vehicle routing problem (VRP) problem integrating a capacitated vehicle routing problem with time windows (CVRPTW), and a service technician routing and scheduling problem (STRSP) for delivering various equipment based on customers' requests, and the subsequent installation by a number of technicians. The main objective is to reduce the overall costs of hired resources, and the total transportation costs of trucks/technicians. The problem was the topic of the fourth edition of the VeRoLog Solver Challenge in cooperation with the ORTEC company. Our contribution to research is the development of a mathematical model for this problem and a novel hyper‐heuristic algorithm to solve the problem based on a population of solutions. Experimental results on two datasets of small and real‐world size revealed the success of the hyper‐heuristic approach in finding optimal solutions in a shorter computational time, when compared to our exact model. The results of the large size dataset were also compared to the results of the eight finalists in the competition and were found to be competitive, proving the potential of our developed hyper‐heuristic framework.

Citation

Kheiri, A., Ahmed, L., Boyacı, B., Gromicho, J., Mumford, C., Özcan, E., & Dirikoç, A. S. (2020). Exact and hyper‐heuristic solutions for the distribution‐installation problem from the VeRoLog 2019 challenge. Networks, 76(2), 294-319. https://doi.org/10.1002/net.21962

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 26, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Jun 29, 2020
• Publication Date: 2020-09
• Deposit Date: Jun 30, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 30, 2021
• Journal: Networks
• Print ISSN: 0028-3045
• Electronic ISSN: 1097-0037
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 76
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 294-319
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/net.21962
• Keywords: Computer Networks and Communications; Hardware and Architecture; Software; Information Systems
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4739413
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/net.21962
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Kheiri, A., Ahmed, L., Boyacı, B., Gromicho, J., Mumford, C., Özcan, E., & Dirikoç, A. S. (2020). Exact and hyper‐heuristic solutions for the distribution‐installation problem from the VeRoLog 2019 challenge. Networks. https://doi.org/10.1002/net.21962, which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/net.21962. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.