A hybrid ant colony optimization with fireworks algorithm to solve capacitated vehicle routing problem

The Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) is a classical combinatorial optimization problem, which objective is to minimize the vehicle travel distance. In this paper a hybrid ant colony optimization based on Fireworks Algorithm (FWA) is proposed to solve the CVRP. The main work of hybrid algorithm is reflected in three aspects: firstly, FWA is introduced on the basis of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm to increase the diversity of algorithms and avoid falling into local optimum too early in the search process; secondly, the elite ant strategy is added to increase the attractiveness of the local optimal path to the ants; thirdly, the Max-Min Ant System (MMAS) is added to limit the pheromone value within a range to prevent the pheromone from increasing too fast on the path. In this paper, the proposed hybrid algorithm is tested in 71 instances and compared with other intelligent algorithms. Experimental results show that the proposed hybrid algorithm finds new best solutions and is competitive with other algorithms.