Empirical Study of the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

Abstract

In this paper, I try to show the value of using empirical research for problems in the Operations Research field. This is done using the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows, which consists of finding the best set of routes past all customers, with the goal to minimise the cost of all the routes. To find solutions for this problem, the Large Neighbourhood Search algorithm is used. A characteristic of the algorithm is highlighted, after which a hypothesis is created. This hypothesis tried to explain the behaviour of the algorithm in relation to the characteristic. An empirical study is used to refute this hypothesis and the gained understanding of the algorithm is highlighted.