Vehicle Routing Problem

Vehicle Routing Problem or simply VRP is a well known combinatorial optimization problem and a generalization of the travelling salesman problem. A definition of the problem is this: We have a number of customers that have a demand for a delivery. Which are the optimal (minimal) routes for a fleet of vehicles starting from a single point (depot) to deliver the requested goods in all customers. Finding optimal solution is a NP-hard problem so heuristic strategies are proposed for approximation of the optimal solution. For more about the problem see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_routing_problem.

The variant of VRP that we are solving here is Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP). It can formally be defined as follows:

Let G = (V, A) be a graph where V is the vertex set and A is the arc set. One of the vertices represents the depot at which a fleet of m identical vehicles of capacity Q is based, and the other vertices customers that need to be serviced. With each customer vertex vi are associated a demand qi. With each arc (vi, vj) of A are associated a cost cij. The CVRP consists in finding a set of routes such that:

1. Each route begins and ends at the depot;
2. Each customer is visited exactly once by exactly one route;
3. The total demand of the customers assigned to each route does not exceed Q;
4. The total cost of the routes is minimized.

Algorithms for solving VRP

To solve VRP we are using the following metaheuristic algorithms: Tabu Search with the initial solution generated with a Greedy Algorithm and Ant Colony System.

The instances used are from http://vrp.atd-lab.inf.puc-rio.br/index.php/en/ in the TSPLIB format described here: https://www.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de/groups/comopt/software/TSPLIB95/tsp95.pdf.

Tabu Search

Tabu search is a metaheuristic search method employing local search methods. Local (neighborhood) searches take a potential solution to a problem and check its immediate neighbors (that is, solutions that are similar except for very few minor details) in the hope of finding an improved solution. Local search methods have a tendency to become stuck in suboptimal regions or on plateaus where many solutions are equally fit.

Tabu search enhances the performance of local search by relaxing its basic rule. First, at each step worsening moves can be accepted if no improving move is available (like when the search is stuck at a strict local minimum). In addition, prohibitions (henceforth the term tabu) are introduced to discourage the search from coming back to previously-visited solutions.

The following chart describes the steps taken in the tabu search algorithm:

The pseudo-code of the Tabu search algorithm:

     1 sBest ← s0
     2 bestCandidate ← s0
     3 tabuList ← []
     4 tabuList.push(s0)
     5 while (not stoppingCondition())
     6 	sNeighborhood ← getNeighbors(bestCandidate)
     7 	bestCandidate ← sNeighborHood.firstElement
     8 	for (sCandidate in sNeighborHood)
     9 		if ( (not tabuList.contains(sCandidate)) and (fitness(sCandidate) > fitness(bestCandidate)) )
    10 			bestCandidate ← sCandidate
    11 		end
    12 	end
    13 	if (fitness(bestCandidate) > fitness(sBest))
    14 		sBest ← bestCandidate
    15 	end
    16 	tabuList.push(bestCandidate)
    17 	if (tabuList.size > maxTabuSize)
    18 		tabuList.removeFirst()
    19 	end
    20 end
    21 return sBest

To find the best configuration for the Tabu parameters, irace has been used. irace is a R library described in the following paper: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/irace/vignettes/irace-package.pdf. The scenario used for irace to find the best configuration can be found here: https://github.com/afurculita/VehicleRoutingProblem/tree/master/tuning/tabu. The best configuration obtained is:

Ant Colony System

Ant Colony System (ACS) is an algorithmic approach inspired by the foraging behavior of real ants. Artificial ants are used to construct a solution for the problem by using the pheromone information from previously generated solutions.

The following flowchart describes the ACS algorithm steps:

The current implementation of ACS for solving VRP is inspired by the paper "Applying the Ant System to the Vehicle Routing Problem" found at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.48.7946&rep=rep1&type=pdf.

To solve the VRP, the artificial ants construct vehicle routes by successively choosing cities to visit, until each city has been visited. Whenever the choice of another city would lead to an infeasible solution for reasons of vehicle capacity, the depot is chosen and a new tour is started. For the selection of a (not yet visited) city, two aspects are taken into account: how good was the choice of that city, an information that is stored in the pheromone trails τ(i, j) associated with each arc (vi; vj), and how promising is the choice of that city. This latter measure of desirability, called visibility and denoted by η(i, j) , is the local heuristic function mentioned above. In the case of the VRP (or the TSP) it is defined as the reciprocal of the distance, i.e. η(i, j) = 1/d(i, j).

The next city to be visited is selected according to a random-proportional rule p(i, j), biased by the parameters α and β that determine the relative influence of the trails and the visibility, respectively.

After an artificial ant k has constructed a feasible solution, the pheromone trails are laid depending on the objective value L(k). For each arc (vi, vj) that was used by ant k, the pheromone trail is increased by 1/L(k). In addition to that, all arcs belonging to the so far best solution (objective value M) are emphasized as if σ ants, so-called elitist ants had used them. One elitist ant increases the trail intensity by an amount equal to 1/M if arc (vi, vj) belongs to the so far best solution, and zero otherwise. Furthermore, part of the existing pheromone trails evaporates.

Concerning the initial placement of the artificial ants it was found that the number of ants should be equal to the number of cities in the TSP, and that each ant should start its tour from another city. The implication for the VRP is that as many ants are used as there are customers in the VRP (i.e. m = n), and that one ant is placed at each customer at the beginning of an iteration. After initializing the basic ant system algorithm, the two steps construction of vehicle routes and trail update, are repeated for a given number of iterations.

To find the best configuration for the ACS parameters, irace has been used. The scenario used for irace to find the best configuration can be found here: https://github.com/afurculita/VehicleRoutingProblem/tree/master/tuning/acs. The best configuration obtained is:

Results

Conclusions

1. ACS and Tabu Search are good options for solving VRP
2. ACS depends on how its parameters are defined
3. There is no guarantee to obtain optimal solutions; it depends on a probabilistic factor
4. Tabu Search is much better than ACS for solving VRP