Reduction and Solution of Large Scale Vehicle Routing Problems

This paper discusses the General Routing Problem approach to solving large scale routing problems. The General Routing Problem on network G = (N; A) requires finding the minimum cost cycle that visits every node in subset Q ⊆ N and that traverses every arc in a subset R ⊆ A. Utilizing special problem characteristics and the structure of real transportation networks, large reduction in effective problem size and complexity can often be made. This permits a very effective heuristic to produce optimum and near optimum solutions quickly.