The Max-Min Ant System Solving the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

The Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows(VRPTW),which is more practical than VRP, is based on VRP and adds constraints of service time windows.This paper studys VRPTW. Aiming at the weaknesses of ant colony algorithm, including slow convergence and easy to get into local optimal solutions, adopts Max-Min Ant System(MMAS) to solve the problem. The pheromone is limited within a certain range. The experimental comparison shows that the MMAS algorithm is effective for solving VRPTW, can improve the ability of optimization and avoid the local optimal solutions.