Solving vehicle routing problems with genetic algorithms

Many transportation problems, such as the travelling salesman problem, are computationally hard but often solvable quickly, although with less certainty, by heuristic methods. Genetic algorithms fall into this category and generate results with favourable scaling behaviour. We apply a two-level genetic algorithm to an advanced transportation problem, an example of the General Pickup and Delivery Problem. We discuss the formulation of the problem as an evolutionary one, show that the results scale well with size and that application to real-world situations is within reach