Two-Stage Heuristic Algorithm for a New Model of Hazardous Material Multi-depot Vehicle Routing Problem

Vehicle routing problem (VRP) plays a vital role in logistics management. Among which, the transportation of hazardous material attracts much attention especially in China. The hazardous material multi-depot vehicle routing problem (HMDVRP) considers the transportation of hazardous material and multiple depots based on VRP. This paper develops a new HMDVRP bi-objective optimization model. Some new decision variables are introduced to the model to describe the sequence of customers and simplify the model expression. Moreover, the risk measurement of the model considers the change of the loading, which reflects the nature of hazardous material transportation. HMDVRP is NP-hard, and the heuristic algorithms are the main method used for solving it. This paper proposes a two-stage heuristic algorithm to solve the new HMDVRP model. Numerical experiments show that the two-stage heuristic algorithm can solve the HMDVRP model effectively and efficiently.