Title: A firefly algorithm for the heterogeneous fixed fleet vehicle routing problem

Authors: Panagiotis-Petros Matthopoulos; Stella Sofianopoulou

Addresses: Department of Industrial Management and Technology, University of Piraeus, 80 Karaoli and Dimitriou St., 185 34 Piraeus, Greece ' Business School, University of Sunderland, St. Peter's Campus, Sunderland, SR6 0DD, UK; Department of Industrial Management and Technology, University of Piraeus, 80 Karaoli and Dimitriou St., 185 34 Piraeus, Greece

Abstract: Vehicle routing is a key success factor in logistics problems. A variation of vehicle routing problem (VRP), the heterogeneous fixed fleet VRP in which the vehicles available for distribution activities are characterised by different capacities and costs, is tackled. A hybrid firefly algorithm for optimising the routing of heterogeneous fixed fleet of vehicles in logistics distribution systems is presented. The principles and key steps of the proposed firefly algorithm are introduced in detail. Experimental results from solving the heterogeneous fixed fleet vehicle routing problem when tested on benchmark datasets are demonstrated. Moreover, the algorithm is compared with other algorithms solving similar problems in order to prove the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid firefly algorithm.

Keywords: firefly algorithm; nature inspired metaheuristic algorithms; combinatorial optimisation; vehicle routing problem; VRP.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2019.102471

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2019 Vol.33 No.2, pp.204 - 224

Received: 23 Apr 2017
Accepted: 08 Feb 2018
Published online: 27 Sep 2019 *

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