Constraint programming-based solution approaches for three-dimensional loading capacitated vehicle routing problems

This paper presents constraint programming-based solution approaches for the three-dimensional loading capacitated vehicle routing problem (3l-CVRP) that consists of vehicle routing and three-dimensional loading problems in distribution logistics. Despite the practical benefits in the logistics world, the 3l-CVRP has not been extensively studied in the literature for its high combinatorial complexity. Therefore, we developed integrated and decomposed constraint programming-based solution methods in this study. The decomposed models outperformed the mixed-integer programming model proposed earlier in the literature for small-size problems. Furthermore, we solved the well-known benchmark problems with a decomposed model using constraint programming for the vehicle routing part of the problem and an evolutionary algorithm for the loading part. The computational study results show that the best-known results are improved in 36 of 93 problems.

Automated summary

This study presents constraint programming-based solution approaches for the 3l-CVRP in distribution logistics. The developed decomposed models outperformed the previous mixed-integer programming models for small-size problems. The results of computational study show improvement in 36 out of 93 benchmark problems.