Discrete Optimization Local search with annealing-like restarts to solve the VRPTW Abstract

In this paper, we propose a metaheuristic basedon annealing-like restarts to diversify andintensify local searches for solving the vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW). Using the SolomonÕs benchmark instances for the problem, our methodobtainedseven new best results andequaled19 other best results. Extensive comparisons indicate that our methodis comparable to the best in publishedliterature. This approach is flexible andcan be extendedto handle other variants of vehicle routing problems and other combinatorial optimization problems