International Journal of Supply and Operations Management

International Journal of Supply and Operations Management

Optimal Solving Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problems with Pickup-Delivery Requests and Time Window Constraints using Cooperative HHO-ATS Algorithm

Document Type : Research Paper

Author
Department of Materials Handling and Logistics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand
10.22034/ijsom.2026.137299.3585
Abstract
Objective: The multi-depot vehicle routing problem with pickup-delivery requests and time window constraints (MDVRPPDTW) is a complex NP-hard optimization problem in logistics and material handling. This study aims to develop an effective optimization approach for obtaining high-quality solutions to large-scale MDVRPPDTW instances.
Methods: Cooperative Harris Hawks Optimization-Adaptive Tabu Search (Cooperative HHO-ATS) algorithm is proposed. The algorithm employs a serial-heterogeneous framework that combines the global exploration capability of Harris Hawks Optimization (HHO) with the local exploitation strength of Adaptive Tabu Search (ATS). HHO is first used to identify promising regions of the search space, after which ATS refines the elite solution generated by HHO to improve solution quality and convergence. The proposed method was evaluated on ten benchmark MDVRPPDTW instances containing 200-400 customer locations.
Results: The performance of Cooperative HHO-ATS was compared with Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), standalone HHO, and ATS. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm consistently achieves shorter total travel distances across all benchmark instances.
Conclusion: The integration of HHO and ATS in Cooperative HHO-ATS effectively balances exploration and exploitation, resulting in superior optimization performance. Cooperative HHO-ATS algorithm outperforms GA, PSO, HHO, and ATS in solving large-scale MDVRPPDTW instances and represents a promising approach for practical logistics routing optimization problems.
Keywords
Subjects

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Available Online from 05 November 2026