GENETIC CLUSTERING: AN ADAPTIVE HEURISTIC FOR THE MULTIDEPOT VEHICLE ROUTING PROBLEM

A generalized clustering method based on a Genetic Algorithm is proposed. The Genetic Clustering (GenClust) method is used for solving the multidepot vehicle routing problem. The solution obtained by the genetic clustering method is improved using an efficient postoptimizer. A set of problems obtained from the literature are used to compare the efficiency of the genetic clustering method for solving the multidepot vehicle routing problem. The genetic clustering method found 11 new best known solutions from the 23 problems in the literature set.