Modified clarke wright algorithms for solving the realistic vehicle routing problem

Abstract

The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is a well-known management problem in large enterprises' logistic departments; in fact, it is classified as a combinatorial problem, where customers of known demands are supplied by one or several depots. Several realistic constraints are related to the vehicle routing problem; and thus, much time is needed to solve this problem in a deterministic way. The purpose of this work is to resolve a major concern for several enterprises that needs to serve their `prioritized' customers in the shortest possible time. Thus, in this paper we implement and test a modified version of the Clarke Wright algorithm where we concentrate on route time and customer's priority. In this modified version, we, further, want to serve all customers as per their pre-assigned priorities, keeping in mind to cover the needed working hours. The results of our modified algorithm show that ....