Ant colony optimisation-based heuristic for a location-routing problem: a case study in parcel delivery services. (12th April 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Panicker, Vinay V.; Sridharan, R.
• Is Part Of: International journal of data science. Volume 1:Number 3(2016)
• Page Start: 276
• Page End: 297
• Publication Date: 2016-04-12
• Subjects: ACO -- ant colony optimisation -- LRP -- location routing problem -- logistics -- case study -- parcel delivery services -- heuristics -- depots -- distribution routes -- depot capacity -- total delivery time -- efficiency; Big data -- Periodicals; Data mining -- Periodicals; Information storage and retrieval systems -- Periodicals; Decision making -- Data processing -- Periodicals; 005.7
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2053-0811

Abstract

This work focuses on solving a practical case of location-routing problem (LRP) in parcel delivery services. The work intends to determine a set of depots to be opened and design the distribution routes for a parcel delivery firm. The problem is constrained by the capacity of depots and the total delivery time available on the vehicle. Moreover, there is a homogenous fleet of vehicles visiting each customer just once, delivering their parcel(s). The objective is to minimise the total cost incurred while delivering the parcels. An ant colony optimisation (ACO)-based heuristic is proposed to solve the practical application of LRP. A computational study under three operational policies has been carried out to confirm the potentialities of the proposed heuristic in solving the problem. A comparative analysis between the solutions obtained using the proposed heuristic and the present solution adopted by the firm demonstrates the efficiency of the proposed heuristic.