Particle Swarm Optimization in Solving Vehicle Routing Problem

The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is a NP complete problem and is also a hot topic in the operational research. But traditional methods might suffer from slow convergence and the curse of large sizes, heuristics-based swarm intelligence can be an efficient alternative. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is known to effectively solve engineering optimization problems. In this paper, the PSO in solving VRP is comprehensive surveyed from two basic aspects: the improved PSO algorithms and the particle encoding method. For each application, technical details that are required are all discussed. Finally, a summary is given together with suggestions for future research.