Optimizations Methods for Freight Transportation

The following work concerns the study of the evolutionary algorithm, which optimizes freight transport planning. The demand for freight transport is constantly increasing nowadays and with creating, implementing and using proper route planning we are able to significantly reduce transportation costs. However, it is preferably to implement it in companies with large numbers of served customers and with a sufficiently large fleet of vehicles. The study starts by defining what fright transport planning problem is and by characterizing its existing specifications and variants. My work proceeds to give a background of the possible solutions to the multifaceted aspects of the problem. The specific subproblem I choose to focus on is the Vehicle routing problem with Pickup and Delivery for which I apply the optimization solution. In the main body of my thesis, I will elaborate on the chosen optimization solution which encompasses the genetic algorithm and evolutionary strategy. The aim of the study is to measure the suitability of the algorithms and techniques used, for which reason the final part of my work will deal with the analysis and evaluation of the experiments