Knowledge-Guided Neighborhood Search Algorithm for Close-Open Vehicle Routing Problem

A realistic variant of conventional vehicle routing problems, which simultaneously considers the open and close routes in the solution of the problem, is introduced in this paper. The objective is to obtain the optimal routing planning and minimize the total costs for operating the open and close routes. A knowledge-guided neighborhood search (KGNS) algorithm is designed to handle this vehicle routing problem, and the results of experiments show that the proposed KGNS algorithm can effectively produce the satisfied solutions.