TY - JOUR
T1 - A heuristic algorithm for the free newspaper delivery problem
AU - Archetti, Claudia
AU - Doerner, Karl F.
AU - Tricoire, Fabien
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - This paper addresses the problem of finding an effective distribution plan to deliver free newspapers from a production plant to subway, bus, or tram stations. The overall goal is to combine two factors: first, the free newspaper producing company wants to minimize the number of vehicle trips needed to distribute all newspapers produced at the production plant. Second, the company is interested in minimizing the time needed to consume all newspapers, i.e., the time needed to get all the newspapers taken by the final readers. The resulting routing problem combines aspects of the vehicle routing problem with time windows, the inventory routing problem, and additional constraints related to the production schedule. We propose a formulation and different heuristic approaches, as well as a hybrid method. Computational tests with real world data show that the hybrid method is the best in various problem settings.
AB - This paper addresses the problem of finding an effective distribution plan to deliver free newspapers from a production plant to subway, bus, or tram stations. The overall goal is to combine two factors: first, the free newspaper producing company wants to minimize the number of vehicle trips needed to distribute all newspapers produced at the production plant. Second, the company is interested in minimizing the time needed to consume all newspapers, i.e., the time needed to get all the newspapers taken by the final readers. The resulting routing problem combines aspects of the vehicle routing problem with time windows, the inventory routing problem, and additional constraints related to the production schedule. We propose a formulation and different heuristic approaches, as well as a hybrid method. Computational tests with real world data show that the hybrid method is the best in various problem settings.
UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221713003536
U2 - 10.1016/j.ejor.2013.04.039
DO - 10.1016/j.ejor.2013.04.039
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0377-2217
VL - 230
SP - 245
EP - 257
JO - European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR)
JF - European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR)
IS - 2
ER -