A genetic algorithm for the pickup and delivery problem: An application to the helicopter offshore transportation

This paper is a result of the application of soft computing technologies to solve the pick up and delivery problem (PDP). In this paper, we consider a practical PDP that is frequently encountered in the real-world logistics operations, such as Helicopter Offshore Crew Transportation of Oil & Gas Company. We consider a typical scenario of relatively large number of participants, about 70 persons and 5 helicopters. Logistics planning turns to be a combinatorial problem, and that makes it very difficult to find reasonable solutions within a short computational time. We present an algorithm based on two optimization techniques, genetic algorithms and heuristic optimization. Our solution is tested on an example with a known optimal solution, and on actual data provided by PEMEX, Mexican Oil Company. Currently, the algorithm is implemented as part of the system for simulation and optimization of offshore logistics called SMART-Logistics and it is at a field-testing phase.