Heuristics for the multi-period orienteering problem with multiple time windows

• Published in: Computers & operations research Vol. 37; no. 2; pp. 351 - 367
• Main Authors: Tricoire, Fabien, Romauch, Martin, Doerner, Karl F., Hartl, Richard F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.02.2010; Elsevier; Pergamon Press Inc
• Subjects: Algorithms; Applied sciences; Comparative analysis; Exact sciences and technology; Flows in networks. Combinatorial problems; Heuristic; Logistics; Multi-period; Multiple time windows; Operational research and scientific management; Operational research. Management science; Orienteering; Problem solving; Route duration constraints; Routing; Studies; Transportation problem (Operations research); Variable neighborhood search; Multiple time windows; Multi-period; Variable neighborhood search; Route duration constraints; Orienteering; Time window; Neighborhood search; Vehicle routing problem; Heuristic method; Routing; Feasibility; Search algorithm
• ISSN: 0305-0548; 1873-765X; 0305-0548
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cor.2009.05.012

We present the multi-period orienteering problem with multiple time windows (MuPOPTW), a new routing problem combining objective and constraints of the orienteering problem (OP) and team orienteering problem (TOP), constraints from standard vehicle routing problems, and original constraints from a real-world application. The problem itself comes from a real industrial case. Specific route duration constraints result in a route feasibility subproblem. We propose an exact algorithm for this subproblem, and we embed it in a variable neighborhood search method to solve the whole routing problem. We then provide experimental results for this method. We compare them to a commercial solver. We also adapt our method to standard benchmark OP and TOP instances, and provide comparative tables with state-of-the-art algorithms.