The vehicle routing problem for the coal mine dangerous materials distribution

Coal mine materials delivery process has the following characteristics: (1) Depot and warehouse are located in different places; (2) Dangerous materials include explosives and detonators which cannot be mixed together for delivery; (3) There is no desired time window, but urgency for demand. Our objective aims at minimizing the distribution cost. For dangerous materials delivery process, we build a multi-tour, single-depot and multi-warehouse model. Then, we employ the genetic algorithm for solving the above model. Finally, we apply the model and the proposed algorithm to the materials distribution problem of Zhengzhou Coal Mine and Power Supply Co., Ltd. located in China. The computational results indicate that the genetic algorithm performs better than the practical distribution situation.