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DVRP: a hard dynamic combinatorial optimisation problem tackled by an evolutionary hyper-heuristic

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Abstract

In this paper we propose and evaluate an evolutionary-based hyper-heuristic approach, called EH-DVRP, for solving hard instances of the dynamic vehicle routing problem. A hyper-heuristic is a high-level algorithm, which generates or chooses a set of low-level heuristics in a common framework, to solve the problem at hand. In our collaborative framework, we have included three different types of low-level heuristics: constructive, perturbative, and noise heuristics. Basically, the hyper-heuristic manages and evolves a sophisticated sequence of combinations of these low-level heuristics, which are sequentially applied in order to construct and improve partial solutions, i.e., partial routes. In presenting some design considerations, we have taken into account the allowance of a proper cooperation and communication among low-level heuristics, and as a result, find the most promising sequence to tackle partial states of the (dynamic) problem. Our approach has been evaluated using the Kilby’s benchmarks, which comprise a large number of instances with different topologies and degrees of dynamism, and we have compared it with some well-known methods proposed in the literature. The experimental results have shown that, due to the dynamic nature of the hyper-heuristic, our proposed approach is able to adapt to dynamic scenarios more naturally than low-level heuristics. Furthermore, the hyper-heuristic can obtain high-quality solutions when compared with other (meta) heuristic-based methods. Therefore, the findings of this contribution justify the employment of hyper-heuristic techniques in such changing environments, and we believe that further contributions could be successfully proposed in related dynamic problems.

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  1. Department of Computer Science, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, 2390123, Valparaíso, Chile

    Pablo Garrido & María Cristina Riff

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  1. Pablo Garrido
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  2. María Cristina Riff
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Correspondence to Pablo Garrido.

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Fondecyt Project 1080110.

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Garrido, P., Riff, M.C. DVRP: a hard dynamic combinatorial optimisation problem tackled by an evolutionary hyper-heuristic. J Heuristics 16, 795–834 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10732-010-9126-2

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