Iterated clustering optimization of the split-delivery vehicle routing problem considering passenger walking distance

The user-oriented, demand-driven nature of customized shuttle bus (CSB) services forces operators to pay more attention to service quality. However, the bus route planning of CSB and other similar systems in established studies rarely took service quality into consideration while minimizing operating costs. This study proposed an open split-delivery weighted vehicle routing problem with iterated clustering (OSDWVRP-IC) to simultaneously optimize the route of bus and passenger walking distance. A max-min ant system (MMAS) algorithm is developed to solve the OSDWVRP-IC. The effectiveness of the proposed model is validated using a range of classical benchmark instance sets. The simulation results indicate that the algorithm proposed in this study sacrifices a very limited in-vehicle distance in exchange for a significant reduction in passenger walking distance.