The Single Vehicle Routing Problem for Home Delivery

• Main Authors: Yi-Fang Chen, 陳怡芳
• Other Authors: Da-Jie Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/02737963384631670398

碩士 === 逢甲大學 === 交通工程與管理所 === 93 === With the development of e-Commerce, people can place orders through internet and the commodity is shipped right to the customer’s door, hence people reply on home delivery service more and more and the service competition becomes more intensive. The characteristics of home delivery service are of low volume, being highly variable, and needs to serve many points within a time window. Hence the service cost is higher than traditional carrier’s. Vehicle routing has a great impact on the level of service (responsiveness) and operating costs (efficiency). Therefore, how to plan vehicle routing effectively for home delivery is the key to success in competition. Home delivery service serves two types of customers - general customers and contracted customers. Usually, pickup-delivery service is provided in the morning and afternoon for general customers but at pre-specified times for contracted customers. Considering the service time for both customers, the vehicle routing problem becomes a time window constraint problem. In addition, some demands are still unknown before vehicles leaving from the depot. Therefore, we can define the vehicle routing planning of home delivery service as Dynamic Pickup-Delivery VRP with Time Window (DPDVRPTW). In this study, we design a vehicle routing system. The initial vehicle routes are constructed by the nearest insertion method. The Tabu Search (TS) algorithm is used for improving vehicle routes and Swap and Or-opt are used in sequence as search engines. The test problems are designed in different scales depending on the service times and the related parameters are selected according to the improving rate obtained from each problem test. Finally, the spatial analysis feature of Geographic Information System (GIS) is used to assist home delivery service companies in vehicle routing. According to the test results, the length of initial routes can be reduced by 30% to 40% after improving the routing procedure and the level of service remains satisfactory.