Pickup capacitated vehicle routing problem with three-dimensional loading constraints: Model and algorithms

Jushang Chi and Shiwei He

Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 2023, vol. 176, issue C

Abstract: This study addresses the pickup capacitated vehicle routing problem with three-dimensional loading constraints (3L-PCVRP), which combined the container loading problem (CLP) and the capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP). A mixed-integer linear programming model for 3L-PCVRP is designed with the objective of minimizing the total transportation cost. The basic constraints of CLP and CVRP as well as the practical constraints imposed by the pickup operations are incorporated in 3L-PCVRP. An improved branch-and-price-based (B&P) algorithm is proposed to solve 3L-PCVRP. The 3L-PCVRP model is decomposed into the restricted master problem (RMP) for selecting routes and the subproblem (SP) for generating routes that satisfy the loading and routing constraints. A label-correcting-based algorithm (LCA) is presented to solve the SP, which employs a two-stage method and two enhanced loading algorithms to ensure the loading feasibility of the routes. The two loading algorithms (tree search and greedy heuristic algorithms) are improved by a new evaluation function and an improved space-merging method. The two-stage method is designed to call the two loading algorithms at different frequencies to investigate the route feasibility accurately and efficiently. Numerical experiments are designed to test the performance of the proposed algorithms. The efficiency and effectiveness of the improved loading algorithms are demonstrated in hundreds randomly generated instances. For small-scale 3L-PCVRP instances, the B&P algorithm can generate solutions that are not worse than those of the solver within 0.14% of the solver’s running time. The efficiency and effectiveness of the improved B&P algorithm are also validated in large-scale benchmark instances.

Keywords: Three-dimensional loading; Routing; Pickup operation; Loading algorithm; Branch-and-price algorithm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1366554523001965
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:transe:v:176:y:2023:i:c:s1366554523001965

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600244/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600244/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.tre.2023.103208

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review is currently edited by W. Talley

More articles in Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().