Using a spatial decision support system for solving the vehicle routing problem

Recent technological advances in Operational Research and Information Technology have enabled the development of high quality spatial decision support systems (SDSS). They constitute a new scientific area of information systems applications developed to support semi-structured or unstructured decisions, paying much attention to the spatial dimension of data to be analyzed, such as the location and shape of, and relationships among, geographic features. This paper presents a SDSS to coordinate and disseminate tasks and related information for solving the vehicle routing problem (VRP) using a metaheuristic method termed: backtracking adaptive threshold accepting (BATA). Its architecture involves an integrated framework of geographical information system (GIS) and a relational database management system (RDBMS) equipped with interactive communication capabilities between peripheral software tools. The SDSS was developed for Windows 98 platforms, focusing on the detailed road network of Athens. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.