Comparing descent heuristics and metaheuristics for the vehicle routing problem

Three improvement heuristics for the vehicle routing problem are considered: a descent heuristic and two metaheuristics Simulated Annealing and Tabu Search. In order to make an in-depth comparison of the performance of these improvement heuristics, their behavior is analyzed on a heuristic, time-sensitive level as well as on a parametric level. The design and the results of the experiments are outlined. The external validity of the conclusions is discussed.