A tabu search method for the truck and trailer routing problem

A solution construction method and a tabu search improvement heuristic coupled with the deviation concept found in deterministic annealing is developed to solve the truck and trailer routing problem. We test our tabu search method on 21 problems that have been converted from the basic vehicle routing problem. Our construction method always solves a problem (it always finds a feasible solution) and the tabu search improvement heuristic significantly improves an initial solution.