An object-oriented evaluation framework for dynamic vehicle routing problems under real-time information

The dynamic vehicle routing problems (DVRP) is an extension of vehicle routing problems (VRP) in order to consider possible variations of travel times in the network. In this research, a two-stage framework for solving dynamic vehicle routing problem is proposed. In the first stage, the sweep method is adopted in vehicle assignment. In the second stage, a tabu search algorithm is implemented to improve routes under real-time information. The framework is implemented in an object-oriented approach and possible benefit from real-time information is illustrated through numerical simulation. The simulation-assignment model, DynaTAIWAN is applied in numerical simulation to evaluate real-time routing strategies in a traffic network. Numerical experiments are conducted in a 50 Nodes Network and a Taichung City. The results show that positive benefits could be achieved through utilization of real-time information with careful design.