Virus Evolution Strategy for Vehicle Routing Problems with Time Windows

  • Authors:

  • Hitoshi Kanoh;Souichi Tsukahara

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science, Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan 305-8573;Department of Computer Science, Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan 305-8573

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature: PPSN X
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

This paper proposes a new solution to the vehicle routing problem with time windows using an evolution strategy adopting viral infection. The problem belongs to the NP-hard class and is very difficult to solve within practical time limits using systematic optimization techniques. In conventional evolution strategies, a schema with a high degree-of-fitness produced in the process of evolution may not be inherited when the fitness of the individual containing the schema is low. The proposed method preserves the schema as a virus and uses it by the infection operation in successive generations. Experimental results using extended Solomon's benchmark problems with 1000 customers proved that the proposed method is superior to conventional methods in both its rates of searches and the probability of obtaining solutions.