A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF VEHICLE ROUTING PROBLEM AND TWO-PHASE HEURISTICS

This article provides a comprehensive introduction about the Vehicle Routing Problem and the Two-Phase heuristics used to solve the routing problem. First, the paper gives an introduction to the Vehicle Routing Problemand its many popular variants. Then the approaches to solve the vehicle routing problem is described briefly. The next section defines heuristics and the criteria to be considered while selecting a heuristic, and the following section provides an overview on the classification of the heuristics used in vehicle routing problem. Several algorithms that utilize two phase heuristics are described in detail. Lastly the effectiveness of the two-phase heuristics is highlighted. The information and the review in this paper provides a clear overview of the Vehicle Routing Problem and its solution that employ two-phase heuristics, which can be used as a starting point for further research.