A combination of heuristic and non-heuristic approaches for modified Vehicle Routing Problem

The article addresses a specific Vehicle Routing Problem (VHP) as a part of an optimal cash deployment strategy for a network of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs). A combination of two different approaches (exact and heuristic one) is presented here. The combination of the All Nearest Neighbors (ANN) method with Near Neighbor Search (NNS) supported by the Brute-force method or the Cross Removal Method (CRN) represents an exact approach. The Ant Colony Optimization algorithm represents heuristics. A combination of exact methods with meta-heuristic approach gives better results in a reasonable time. The results are discussed and summarized at the end of the article. The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the panorama of various methods and algorithms for VRP with an emphasis on a real application.