Software for the generalization of the Vehicle Routing Problem

Abstract

This article presents a software solution to the generalization of the Vehicle Routing Problem. The Vehicle Routing Problem is a logistics task, the purpose of which is to transport goods and services to a given place at a given time in a cost-effective manner. Many versions of the task have developed over the years, which model constantly changing, complicated systems. The article details the software solution of a model that models a general system. The software representation contains the following components: vector describing the order of nodes, the matrix describing the assignment of vehicles-nodes-products, vector describing the assignment of vehicle - recharger stations, vector describing the vehicle-start-end-node assignment, vector describing level, vector describing period, solution description vector. The following optimization algorithms were used in the article: Ant Colony System, Genetic Algorithm, Simulated Annealing and Tabu Search. The article presents the literature of the Vehicle Routing Problem, the software solution of the general system, the applied algorithms and their running results through a case study.