Cenetic algorithms approach to vehicle routing and scheduling

Vehicle routing and scheduling is considered as an NP-Hard combinatorial problem that must be solved under multiple constraints. The most important tasks of vehicle routing and scheduling should considcr various constraints, such as manpower and vehicle availability, environmental conditions, union restrictions, and supply demand behaviours. This paper considers a delivery task in which propane gas has to be delivered from various supply sources (Gas refineries) to a number of destinations (Proccssing plants) during a working day, by means of a given fleet at minimum cost. To support mangers in vehicle routing and scheduling of thc propane deliveries a Decision Support System (DSS) based on Cenctic Algorithms (GA) is purposed. A GA-bascd search engine is developed to determine the optimum routes for planning thc deliveries.