Multi Phase Methodology for Solving the Multi Depot Vehicle Routing Problem with Limited Supply Capacity at the Depots

This paper focuses on a capacitated multi depot vehicle routing problem, where each depot has a finite supply capacity to meet the customers demand. To solve this problem we propose a multi phase methodology, that extends the "cluster first, route second" approach. It is based on iterative routings to find and reassign misplaced customers with respect to the depots and with the objective of improving the final routing. Several assignment and routing algorithms are considered to evaluate the proposed methodology under different settings. A mathematical model of the problem is given to perform a comparative study of the methodology against an exact solution method. The results obtained from the numerical experiments carried out allow us to conclude that the methodology can be successfully applied to the capacitated multi depot vehicle routing problem.