Time-dependent vehicle routing algorithm for perishable goods delivery

This paper addresses time-dependent vehicle routing problems for perishable goods delivery.Noticing that the traveling time between two locations not only depends on the distance but also on the traveling speeds,it is quite challenging to find an optimal route for such a problem by mathematical approaches.Therefore,a computational simulation model is proposed to represent this problem.Furthermore,a heuristic search algorithm based on adaptive genetic algorithm is presented to find the optimal solution.Here the adaptivity means that real-time traveling speed information fetched by the driver is considered for making route decision dynamically.Finally,the adaptive algorithm is implemented on a multi-agent simulation platform,and a 15-customer time-denpendent vehicle routing problem for perishable goods delivery is given to show rationality and efficiency of the algorithm.