Constructive heuristics for Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem: a comparative study

Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is concerned with the optimal design of routes to be used by a fleet of vehicles to serve a set of customers. In this study we analyze constructive heuristics for a subcase of VRP, where the vehicles have a limited capacity - Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP). The problem is NP-hard, therefore heuristic algorithms which provide near-optimal polynomial-time solutions are still actual. The aim of this work is to make a comparison of constructive heuristics as there were not found any such classification. Finally, the leader by a criterion of quality is admitted being a Clarke and Wright Savings heuristic; however, this algorithm cannot find the solution for all used instances. This fact and other ones are discussed in the paper. Our future goal is to make an experimental comparison of the most common and state-of-the-art metaheuristics using well suited constructive heuristic to build a suboptimal solution.