Application of the multi-objective cross-entropy method to the vehicle routing problem with soft time windows

  • C Hauman Stellenbosch University
  • JF Bekker Stellenbosch University

Abstract

The vehicle routing problem with time windows is a widely studied problem with many real-world applications. The problem considered here entails the construction of routes that a number of identical vehicles travel to service different nodes within a certain time window. New benchmark problems with multi-objective features were recently suggested in the literature and the multi-objective optimisation cross-entropy method is applied to these problems to investigate the feasibility of the method and to determine and propose reference solutions for the benchmark problems. The application of the cross-entropy method to the multi-objective vehicle routing problem with soft time windows is investigated. The objectives that are evaluated include the minimisation of the total distance travelled, the number of vehicles and/or routes, the total waiting time and delay time of the vehicles and the makespan of a route.

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Author Biographies

C Hauman, Stellenbosch University
Department of Industrial EngineeringMscEng student
JF Bekker, Stellenbosch University
Department of Industrial EngineeringSenior lecturer
Published
2014-06-03
Section
Research Articles