An ALNS algorithm for the static dial-a-ride problem with ride and waiting time minimization

The paper investigates the static dial-a-ride problem with ride and waiting time minimization. This is a new problem setting of significant practical relevance because several ride-sharing providers launched in recent years in large European cities. In contrast to the standard dial-a-ride problem, these providers focus on the general public. Therefore, they are amongst others in competition with taxis and private cars, which makes a more customer-oriented objective necessary. We present an adaptive large neighbourhood search (ALNS) as well as a dynamic programming algorithm (DP), which are tested in comprehensive computational studies. Although the DP can only be used for a single tour and, due to the computational effort, as a restricted version or for small instances, the ALNS also works efficiently for larger instances. The results indicate that ride-sharing proposals may help to solve the trade-off between individual transport, profitability of the provider, and reduction of traffic and pollution.

A modified adaptive large neighbourhood search for a vehicle routing problem with flexible time window

Vehicle routing problems are widely available in real world application. In this paper, we tackle the resolution of a specific variant of the problem called in the literature vehicle routing problem with flexible time windows (VRPFlexTW), when the solution has to obey several other constraints, such as the consideration of travel, service, and waiting time together with time-window restrictions. There are proposed two modified versions of the Multi-objective Adaptive Large Neighbourhood Search (MOALNS). The MOALNS approach and its different components are described. Also it is listed a computational comparison between the MOALNS versions and the Ant colony optimiser (ACO) on a few instances of the VRPFlexTW.

Time/sequence-dependent scheduling: the design and evaluation of a general purpose tabu-based adaptive large neighbourhood search algorithm

In intelligent manufacturing, it is important to schedule orders from customers efficiently. Make-to-order companies may have to reject or postpone orders when the production capacity does not meet the demand. Many such real-world scheduling problems are characterised by processing times being dependent on the start time (time dependency) or on the preceding orders (sequence dependency), and typically have an earliest and latest possible start time. We introduce and analyze four algorithmic ideas for this class of time/sequence-dependent over-subscribed scheduling problems with time windows: a novel hybridization of adaptive large neighbourhood search (ALNS) and tabu search (TS), a new randomization strategy for neighbourhood operators, a partial sequence dominance heuristic, and a fast insertion strategy. Through factor analysis, we demonstrate the performance of these new algorithmic features on problem domains with varying properties. Evaluation of the resulting general purpose algorithm on three domains—an order acceptance and scheduling problem, a real-world multi-orbit agile Earth observation satellite scheduling problem, and a time-dependent orienteering problem with time windows—shows that our hybrid algorithm robustly outperforms general algorithms including a mixed integer programming method, a constraint programming method, recent state-of-the-art problem-dependent meta-heuristic methods, and a two-stage hybridization of ALNS and TS.