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Exact Algorithms for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Soft Time Windows

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Operations Research Proceedings 2014

Part of the book series: Operations Research Proceedings ((ORP))

Abstract

This paper studies a variant of the Vehicle Routing Problem with Soft Time Windows (VRPSTW) inspired by real world distribution problems. Soft time windows constraints are very common in the distribution industry, but quantifying the trade-off between routing cost and customer inconvenience is a hard task for practitioners. In our model, practitioners impose a minimum routing cost saving (to be achieved with respect to the hard time windows solutions) and ask for the minimization of the customer inconvenience only. We propose two exact algorithms. The first algorithm is based on standard branch-and-cut-and-price. The second algorithm uses concepts of bi-objective optimization and is based on the bisection method.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto Dalle Molle di studi sull’Intelligenza Artificiale (IDSIA), Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera italiana (SUPSI), Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano, Switzerland

    Matteo Salani & Luca Maria Gambardella

  2. University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Maria Battarra

Authors
  1. Matteo Salani
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  2. Maria Battarra
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  3. Luca Maria Gambardella
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matteo Salani .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Operations Research, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Marco Lübbecke

  2. Lehrstuhl II für Mathematik, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Arie Koster

  3. RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Peter Letmathe

  4. E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Reinhard Madlener

  5. Management Science, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Britta Peis

  6. Chair of Operations Management, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Grit Walther

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Salani, M., Battarra, M., Gambardella, L.M. (2016). Exact Algorithms for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Soft Time Windows. In: Lübbecke, M., Koster, A., Letmathe, P., Madlener, R., Peis, B., Walther, G. (eds) Operations Research Proceedings 2014. Operations Research Proceedings. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28697-6_67

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