Optimization of Vehicle Routing Problem Based on Max-Min Ant System with Parameter Adaptation

Vehicle routing problem has been largely studied because of its application in logistic and supply chains management. A number of algorithms inspired by the foraging behaviors of ant colonies have recently been applied to solve vehicle routing problem and its variants. The behavior of ant colonies algorithms depends strongly on the values given to parameters. In most applications, parameter values are kept constant throughout each run of the algorithm. In the paper, max-min ant system with parameter adaptation is adopted to solve these problems. The algorithm is implemented and tested on some instances. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.