Solving the Real-life Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows Using Self Organizing Migrating Algorithm

This article deals with self-organizing migrating algorithm (SOMA) for solving the vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW). Our interest in VRPTW arises from a real-life distribution problem in one of the regions of Slovakia (individual customers' commodities delivering times were restricted by their available service time), where the previous distribution was realized on the base of solution derived with heuristic Clarke & Wright's savings algorithm with time windows. The importance of that problem follows from many practical applications as well as from its computational complexity, therefore the use of optimization techniques seems to be relatively complicated, and nowadays many researchers turn their attention to applications of alternative computational techniques that are inspired by evolutionary biology. The obtained solution allows reducing the total time needed by 16.2%. The presented approach could be used also for solving various economic problems with time restrictions in the field of distribution.