Time Constrained VRP: An Agent Environment-Perception Model

In this paper, we present a multiagent model in which agents have a perception upon their shared environment, a measure is associated to the agents’ perception field. We apply the model on the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW). The overall process adopts the general schema of parallel insertion methods and it uses the contracting of perception’s field of the vehicle agents as a new distance between them. This new measure expresses the feasibility universe of the vehicles and is used as a criterion of choice between candidates vehicles for the insertion of a customer in their plan. Our approach provides a new method to tackle the Time constrained VRP in which the solving process is focused on the future and constitutes an alternative for handling the dynamic version of the problem.