Model and Heuristics for the Heterogeneous Fixed Fleet Vehicle Routing Problem with Pick-Up and Delivery

Purpose - This paper discusses the heterogeneous fixed fleet vehicle routing problem with pick-up and delivery (HFFVRPPD), for vehicles with different capacities, fixed costs, and travel costs. Research Design, data, methodology - This paper made nine assumptions for establishing a mathematical model to describe HFFVRPPD. It established a practical mathematical model, and because of the non-deterministic polynomial-time hard (NP-hard), improved the traditional simulated annealing algorithm and tested a new algorithm using a certain scale model. Result - We calculated the minimum cost of the heterogeneous fixed fleet vehicle routing problem (HFFVRP) with a single task and, on comparing the results with the actual HFFVRP for the single task alone, observed that the total cost of HFFVRPPD reduced significantly by 46.7%. The results showed that the new algorithm provides better solutions and stability. Conclusions - This paper, by comparing the HFFVRP and HFFVRPPD results, highlights certain advantages of using HFFVRPPD in physical distribution enterprises, such as saving distribution vehicles, reducing logistics cost, and raising economic benefits.