A genetic algorithm metaheuristic for bakery distribution vehicle routing problem with load balancing

In this paper, we analyze a distribution problem at a bakery company in Istanbul, Turkey. The bakery wants to distribute products with the available fleets of trucks, while maintaining balance in workload between different truck drivers. The resulting problem is very similar to a capacitated vehicle routing problem with load balancing objective with a maximum distribution time and truck capacity constraints. A genetic algorithm meta-heuristic approach is proposed to obtain good quality solutions. The proposed meta-heuristic is utilized on a case study where different trucks serve customers in a large metropolitan area. The distance matrix is generated via a web application using Google Maps. The solutions obtained via the meta-heuristic are compared with the company´s own distribution plan and global ant colony optimization algorithm.