Decomposition-Based Memetic Algorithm for Multi-Objective Fleet Size and Mix Vehicle Routing Problem

The heterogeneous fleet vehicle routing problem (HFVRP) is of great significance in logistics and transportation. This paper considers a crucial and challenging HFVRP variant, namely multi-objective fleet size and mix vehicle routing problem with unlimited fleet, fixed cost, and dependent cost (MO-FSMVRPFD). A decomposition-based memetic algorithm called MOEA/D-ALS is proposed to cope with MO-FSMVRPFD. MOEA/D-ALS uses the multi-objective evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition (MOEA/D) as the backbone. Beyond that, it adopts a replacement strategy based on maximal fitness improvement (MFI). In addition, the local search is conducted on difficult subproblems for further refinement. The experimental studies on 18 instances show that MOEA/D-ALS exhibits a significant performance superiority over two other representative algorithms. The effectiveness of both the MFI strategy and the adaptive local search procedure is also validated.