Heuristic Algorithm of VRPTW Based on Single- Pass Multiple Vehicle Collaboration

This paper studies the vehicle routing and scheduling problem with time windows in the pickup and delivery service for customers via vehicles. After discussing the collaborative pattern of vehicles and defining the isolated customer point, we derive the model and strategy of single-pass multiple vehicle collaborations. And then we propose a heuristic algorithm based on single-pass multiple vehicle collaborations to overcome this problem. Firstly, we aims at the minimum cost, takes into account customers’ satisfaction degree and vehicles’ circumvention, and regards customer points as collaboration points. Then multiple collaborative vehicles are used to transfer customers at isolated customer points to basic vehicles at collaboration points in the collaborative way. And the basic vehicle delivers these customers to the given destination together with the customers at non-isolated customer points. Finally, the pickup and delivery service in Flight Ticked Sales Companies is used as a study case and simulations are conducted. Simulation results show that our approach is significantly promising. Keywords—pickup and delivery service; vehicle collaboration; vehicle routing problem; satisfaction degree; heuristic algorithm