Hybrid algorithm for solving the multi-compartment vehicle routing problem with time windows and profit

This paper presents a new variant of the well-known vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW). More precisely, this paper addresses a multi-compartment vehicle routing problem with time windows and profit (MCVRPTW with profit). The aim of this problem is to serve a set of customers by using a set of vehicles with multiple compartments, under a minimum traveling cost. The vehicles, starting and ending at the depot, have a limited capacity and each compartment is dedicated to one product. A customer is served only within a given time windows and, when it is visited a profit is collected (i.e. a profit not low than a preset profit bound). To solve this problem, an hybrid approach combining the genetic algorithm (GA) and the iterated local search (ILS) is used.