An improved estimation of distribution algorithm for multi-compartment electric vehicle routing problem

The multi-compartment electric vehicle routing problem(EVRP) with soft time window and multiple charging types(MCEVRP-STW&MCT) is studied, in which electric multi-compartment vehicles that are environmentally friendly but need to be recharged in course of transport process, are employed. A mathematical model for this optimization problem is established with the objective of minimizing the function composed of vehicle cost, distribution cost, time window penalty cost and charging service cost. To solve the problem, an estimation of the distribution algorithm based on Lévy flight(EDA-LF) is proposed to perform a local search at each iteration to prevent the algorithm from falling into local optimum. Experimental results demonstrate that the EDA-LF algorithm can find better solutions and has stronger robustness than the basic EDA algorithm. In addition, when comparing with existing algorithms, the result shows that the EDA-LF can often get better solutions in a relatively short time when solving medium and large-scale instances.Further experiments show that using electric multi-compartment vehicles to deliver incompatible products can produce better results than using traditional fuel vehicles.