A Free Geographic Information System as a Tool for Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing

Abstract

The classic Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) has been extensively studied in recent decades due to its practical application as a tool to support logistics and transport. The main focus of most studies in the literature is the development of methods aimed at finding solutions to tenths of improvement for bodies established in the literature. However, the main focus of this work is the practical application of a variant of this problem through integration with a free Geographic Information System (GIS). From a problem identified in a food sector company, we identified the need to extend the VRP to Multi-Depot VRP (MDVRP) and use heuristic techniques to solve large problems of the company. The prototype showed better results than the commercial software out on the market.

Keywords

• Vehicle Routing
• Multi-Depot
• Geographic Information System
• Free Software