An Efficient Algorithm for Solving a Stochastic Location-Routing Problem

The purpose of this paper is to determine the location of facilities and routes of vehicles, in which the facilities and routes are available within probability interval (0, 1). Hence, this study is coherent the stochastic aspects of the location problem and the vehicle routing problem (VRP). The location problem is solved by optimization software. Because of the computational complexity of the stochastic vehicle routing problem (SVRP), it is solved by a meta-heuristic algorithm based on simulated annealing (SA). This hybrid algorithm uses genetic operators in order to improve the quality of the obtained solutions. Our proposed hybrid SA is more efficient than the original SA algorithm. The associated results are compared with the results obtained by SA and optimization software.

Location; Vehicle routing problem; Stochastic; simulated annealing; Genetic operators.