A Branch-and-Cut Algorithm for the Capacitated Open Vehicle Routing Problem

Adam N. Letchford (), Jens Lysgaard () and Richard W. Eglese ()
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Adam N. Letchford: Department of Management Science, Postal: University of Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YW, England,
Jens Lysgaard: Department of Business Studies, Postal: The Aarhus School of Business, Fuglesangs Allé 4, 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark, http://www.asb.dk/staff/bs/lys.aspx?page=%7B803EFF10-69F7-4C0F-AEE3-F7F410E4B6F2%7D
Richard W. Eglese: Department of Management Science, Postal: University of Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YW, England,

No L-2006-06, CORAL Working Papers from University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Business Studies

Abstract: In open vehicle routing problems, the vehicles are not required to return to the depot after completing service. In this paper, we present the first exact optimization algorithm for the open version of the well-known capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP). The algorithm is based on branch-and-cut. We show that, even though the open CVRP initially looks like a minor variation of the standard CVRP, the integer programming formulation and cutting planes need to be modified in subtle ways. Computational results are given for several standard test instances, which enables us for the first time to assess the quality of existing heuristic methods, and to compare the relative difficulty of open and closed versions of the same problem.

Keywords: Vehicle routing; branch-and-cut; separation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: Written 2006-04-26
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