A New Metaheuristic Algorithm for the Split Delivery Vehicle Fleet Mix Problem with Access Availability

Due to the importance of distribution planning among the different parts of the supply chain, in this paper we have considered the routing of transportation of goods between the various components of the supply chain as vehicle routing problem. The purposes of this paper are considering the real-world operational constraints of distribution planning and provide an efficient metaheuristic solution than other existing methods. Therefore in this paper the routing problem, includes a fleet size and mixed vehicles that are located in central depot and the possibility of split service and limited vehicle access availability for some costumers has been considers. The number of vehicles of each type is not limited. This problem is a well-known NP-hard one; therefore, a new multi-ant colony optimization algorithm is proposed to solve the given problem. Finally, the numerical results of designed experiment problems according to distribution network inside Iran with an improved heuristic method have been analyzed.