Hybrid Heuristic for Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows and Compatibility Constraints in Home Healthcare System

This work involves a heuristic for solving vehicle routing problems with time windows (VRPTW) general compatibility-matching between customer/patient and server/caretaker constraints to capture the nature of systems such as caretakers’ home visiting or healthcare (HHC) systems. Since any variation VRPTW is more complicated than regular VRP, specific, custom-made needed solve problem. The proposed in this an efficient hybrid novice Local Search (LS), Ruin Recreate procedure (R&R) Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). LS acts initial solution finder well engine finding feasible/local optimum. While PSO helps moving from current best next solution, R&R part allows be over-optimized moves back on feasible side. To test our heuristic, we solved 56 benchmark instances 25, 50, 100 customers found that heuristics can find 52, 21, 18 optimal cases, respectively. further investigate proficiency modified include compatibility constraints. results show reach solutions 5 out instances.