Combined location-routing problems—a neural network approach

Martin Schwardt () and Kathrin Fischer ()

Annals of Operations Research, 2009, vol. 167, issue 1, 253-269

Abstract: While in location planning it is often assumed that deliveries are made on a direct-trip basis, in fact deliveries, e.g., to the different supermarkets belonging to a specific chain or to retail outlets of any kind, usually are performed as round-trips. Therefore, it is often necessary to combine the two issues of locating a depot and of planning tours in one problem formulation. In this paper, a neural network approach based on a self-organizing map is proposed for solving such single-depot location-routing problems in the plane. The results derived by this approach are compared with those which can be found by different well-known heuristics, and it is shown that the self-organising map approach competes well with these concepts. Moreover, some modifications which rely on ideas from Tabu Search can be shown to be especially useful for increasing the number of feasible solutions found by the self-organising map approach. Finally, the implementation of the Weiszfeld procedure for a final improvement of the optimal depot location proves to be a useful device. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009

Keywords: Location-routing problems; Neural networks; Self-organising maps; Euclidean distance; Weber problem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10479-008-0377-3

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