One-stage search for multi-depot vehicle routing problem

This paper studies one of the core problems in the supply chain management and transportation - Multi-depot Vehicle Routing Problem (MDVRP). After modelling the MDVRP as a binary programming problem, we present two solving methodologies - two-stage and one-stage approaches. Two-stage approach decomposes the MDVRP into two independent subproblems - assignment and routing, and solves it separately. In contrast, our proposed one-stage algorithm integrates the assignment with the routing. Experimental results on the benchmark data show that the one-stage algorithm outperforms the published two-stage methods