A Biased–Randomized Iterated Local Search with Round-Robin for the Periodic Vehicle Routing Problem

Juan F. Gomez, Antonio R. Uguina, Javier Panadero and Angel A. Juan ()
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Juan F. Gomez: Research Center on Production Management and Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de València, 03801 Alcoy, Spain
Antonio R. Uguina: Research Center on Production Management and Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de València, 03801 Alcoy, Spain
Javier Panadero: Department of Computer Architecture & Operating Systems, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain
Angel A. Juan: Research Center on Production Management and Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de València, 03801 Alcoy, Spain

Mathematics, 2025, vol. 13, issue 15, 1-19

Abstract: The periodic vehicle routing problem (PVRP) is a well-known challenge in real-life logistics, requiring the planning of vehicle routes over multiple days while enforcing visitation frequency constraints. Although numerous metaheuristic and exact methods have tackled various PVRP extensions, real-world settings call for additional features such as depot configurations, tight visitation frequency constraints, and heterogeneous fleets. In this paper, we present a two-phase biased–randomized algorithm that addresses these complexities. In the first phase, a round-robin assignment quickly generates feasible and promising solutions, ensuring each customer’s frequency requirement is met across the multi-day horizon. The second phase refines these assignments via an iterative search procedure, improving route efficiency and reducing total operational costs. Extensive experimentation on standard PVRP benchmarks shows that our approach is able to generate solutions of comparable quality to established state-of-the-art algorithms in relatively low computational times and stands out in many instances, making it a practical choice for real life multi-day vehicle routing applications.

Keywords: combinatorial optimization; metaheuristics; periodic vehicle routing problem; local search (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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