This paper deals with a new extension of the basic vehicle routing problem including depot double time windows and multiple use of vehicles (VRPDM). T11e VRPDM is a combination between a variant of the vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) and the Vehicle Routing Probleh1 with Multiple use of vehicles (VRPM). It consists in designing and assigning multiple routes to vehicles within a given planning period in order to service a set of customers. The depot has double time windows, one for loading the vehicles and the other for their returning back. The aim is to minimize the number of required vehicles. To solve this combinatorial optimisation problem, an evolutionary algorithm incorporating new combinations of crossover and mutation operators is developed. Computational testing on 70 problem instances shows the effectiveness of the suggested approach.
Vehicle routing problem, double time windows, multiple use of vehicles, optimization, evolutionary algorithm.
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