Abstract
We consider the two-echelon location-routing problem (2E-LRP), a well-known problem in freight distribution arising when establishing a two-level transport system with limited capacities. The problem is a generalization of the location routing problem (LRP), involving strategic (location), tactical (allocation) and operational (routing) decisions at the same time. We present a variable neighborhood search (VNS) based on a previous successful VNS for the LRP, accordingly adapted as well as extended. The proposed algorithm provides solutions of high quality in short time, making use of seven different basic neighborhood structures parameterized with different perturbation size leading to a total of 21 specific neighborhood structures. For intensification, two consecutive local search methods are applied, optimizing the transport costs efficiently by considering only recently changed solution parts. Experimental results clearly show that our method is at least competitive regarding runtime and solution quality to other leading approaches, also improving upon several best known solutions.
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Keywords
- Variable Neighborhood Search
- Vehicle Route Problem
- Facility Location Problem
- Path Relinking
- Location Route Problem
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Schwengerer, M., Pirkwieser, S., Raidl, G.R. (2012). A Variable Neighborhood Search Approach for the Two-Echelon Location-Routing Problem. In: Hao, JK., Middendorf, M. (eds) Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimization. EvoCOP 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7245. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29124-1_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29124-1_2
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