A cooperative coevolutionary algorithm for the multi-depot vehicle routing problem.

Abstract

The Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem (MDVRP) is an important variant of the classical Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP), where the customers can be served from a number of depots. This paper introduces a cooperative coevolutionary algorithm to minimize the total route cost of the MDVRP. Coevolutionary algorithms are inspired by the simultaneous evolution process involving two or more species. In this approach, the problem is decomposed into smaller subproblems and individuals from different populations are combined to create a complete solution to the original problem. This paper presents a problem decomposition approach for the MDVRP in which each subproblem becomes a single depot VRP and evolves independently in its domain space. Customers are distributed among the depots based on their distance from the depots and their distance from their closest neighbor. A population is associated with each depot where the individuals represent partial solutions to the problem, that is, sets of routes over customers assigned to the corresponding depot. The fitness of a partial solution depends on its ability to cooperate with partial solutions from other populations to form a complete solution to the MDVRP. As the problem is decomposed and each part evolves separately, this approach is strongly suitable to parallel environments. Therefore, a parallel evolution strategy environment with a variable length genotype coupled with local search operators is proposed. A large number of experiments have been conducted to assess the performance of this approach. The results suggest that the proposed coevolutionary algorithm in a parallel environment is able to produce high-quality solutions to the MDVRP in low computational time.