Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268

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Expert Systems with Applications

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eswa

A fuzzy guided multi-objective evolutionary algorithm model for solving

transportation problem
H.C.W. Lau a, T.M. Chan a, W.T. Tsui a,*, F.T.S. Chan b, G.T.S. Ho a, K.L. Choy a
a
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong
b
Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: In the field of supply chain management and logistics, using vehicles to deliver products from suppliers to
Supply chain management customers is one of the major operations. Before transporting products, optimizing the routing of vehicles
Logistics is required so as to provide a low-cost and efficient service for customers. This paper deals with the prob-
Vehicle routing problem lem of optimization of vehicle routing in which multiple depots, multiple customers, and multiple prod-
Multi-objective optimization
ucts are considered. Since the total traveling time is not always restrictive as a time constraint, the
Multi-objective evolutionary algorithms
Genetic algorithms
objective considered in this paper comprises not only the total traveling distance, but also the total trav-
Fuzzy logic eling time. We propose using a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm called the fuzzy logic guided non-
dominated sorting genetic algorithm 2 (FL-NSGA2) to solve this multi-objective optimization problem.
The role of fuzzy logic is to dynamically adjust the crossover rate and mutation rate after ten consecutive
generations. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of FL-NSGA2, we compared it with the following:
non-dominated sorting genetic algorithms 2 (NSGA2) (without the guide of fuzzy logic), strength Pareto
evolutionary algorithm 2 (SPEA2) (with and without the guide of fuzzy logic), and micro-genetic algo-
rithm (MICROGA) (with and without the guide of fuzzy logic). Simulation results showed that FL-NSGA2
outperformed other search methods in all of three various scenarios.
 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
One of the required strategic plans in the field of supply chain
management and logistics industry is to optimize product delivery
by vehicles from suppliers to customers under various constraints.
This type of problems is called a vehicle routing problem (VRP).
Assuming that the locations of a depot and of customers are known
in a VRP, it is necessary to determine the order in which the vehicle
should visit the customers (i.e. vehicle routing). The vehicle starts
from the depot, serves the customers, and returns to the same de-
pot. Since only one depot is considered in such a case, this VRP is
named a single-depot VRP (Skrlec, Filipec, & Krajcar, 1997;
Yoshiike & Takefuji, 2002). However, a single-depot VRP is not real-
istic because multiple depots are always involved in real-world
applications and the VRP in the scenario we will describe is there-
fore entitled a multi-depot VRP (Lim & Wang, 2005; Renaud,
Laporte, & Boctor, 1996).
The objective in most researches of VRPs, is to minimize only
the total traveling distance of all vehicles, but they do not consider
the total traveling time required for all vehicles as another impor-
tant objective (Alvarenga & Mateus, 2004; Baker & Sheasby, 1999;
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mfting@inet.polyu.edu.hk (W.T. Tsui).
Montané & Galvão, 2006; Ruiz, Maroto, & Alcaraz, 2004;
Secomandi, 2000; Tsutsui & Wilson, 2004). Although some studies
regarded a scenario in which each customer should be served with-
in a given time window as a problem constraint (Ho & Haugland,
2004; Kallehauge, Larsen, & Madsen, 2006; Tan, Lee, & Ou, 2001;
Zhu, Qian, Li, & Zhu, 2006), this is not always so restrictive. The
reason is that some companies have sufficient time to deliver prod-
ucts to customers, but want to offer efficient and fast services to
them for developing and maintaining the company’s good image.
As a result, time should be included as one of objectives rather than
as one of constraints for these companies.
We may think that these two objectives are the same in that the
shorter the total traveling distance, the less the total traveling time
required. Nevertheless, this is not always true. In the real-world
environment, the traveling time along a particular road changes
with the period of the day owing to predictable events such as con-
gestion during peak hours or unpredictable events such as acci-
dents, vehicle breakdowns, etc. (Ichoua, Gendreau, & Potvin,
2003). For example, a vehicle generally needs to take 1 h to travel
from the place A to the place B by using the road (link) AB with dis-
tance, 50 km. If an event happens in this link, the vehicle has to
take 3 h instead. Alternatively, the vehicle can spend 1 h to travel
from A to C through the link AC with distance, 40 km and then
1 h to travel from C to B through the link CB with distance,

0957-4174/$ - see front matter  2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2008.10.031
8256 H.C.W. Lau et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268
30 km. Obviously, 1 h is saved for the latter choice with greater to-
tal traveling distance, 70 km.
Two practical approaches to modelling such real-world traffic
conditions are time-dependent travel time (Hill & Benton, 1992;
Ichoua et al., 2003; Malandraki & Daskin, 1992) and stochastic tra-
vel time (Fu & Rilett, 1998; Gendreau, Laporte, & Seguin, 1996;
Lambert, Laporte, & Louveaux, 1993). The former one was selected
for this study. In this method, the time horizon is divided into q
time intervals, i.e. T1, T2, . . ., Tq. Then, the travel time of each link
is determined by the departure time of the vehicle from an end
node of the link within time interval Tk, k = 1, 2, . . ., q. The model
of time-dependent travel time proposed in Ichoua et al. (2003)
was employed in this paper because it introduced the ‘‘first-in-
first-out” property which was not considered in the past suggested
models.
Since total traveling distance and total traveling time are con-
flicting, the problem is formulated as a multi-objective optimiza-
tion problem. The schemes, enumerative, classical optimization
and stochastic methods, can be used to solve this type of optimiza-
tion problem. The enumerative method can provide a set of true
Pareto-optimal solutions, but it is computationally inefficient or
even infeasible owing to the huge search space (Coello Coello,
Van Veldhuizen, & Lamont, 2002). Owing to the searching space
being arbitrarily limited by using the classical optimization meth-
ods, the required solutions in the vicinity of the Pareto-optimal
front are not easy to come by Coello Coello et al. (2002). Also,
the classical methods use the point-by-point approach in which a
solution obtained per iteration can be modified to a different solu-
tion in the hope that a better solution would be obtained (Deb,
2001). But, this yields only one particular Pareto-optimal solution
at a time. However, the advantage of using multi-objective evolu-
tionary algorithms (MOEAs) is multifaceted. It is possible that,
within a single simulation run, multiple Pareto-optimal solutions
can be acquired with fewer overheads and without limiting the
search space (Coello Coello et al., 2002).
In fact, the notion of MOEAs originated from a stochastic search
technique named genetic algorithms (GA) which has already been
successfully applied to solving different VRPs (Baker & Ayechew,
2003; Hwang, 2002; Louis, Yin, & Yuan, 1999; Maeda, Nakamura,
Ombuki, & Onaga, 1999; Skok, Skrlec, & Krajcar, 2000; Tong, Ning,
& Debao, 2004; Zhu, 2003). GA is effective for obtaining the opti-
mal or near-optimal solution in solving optimization problems
but it has two major drawbacks, (i) slow search speed, and (ii) pre-
mature convergence. This happens because control parameters,
which are chosen on the basis of the experience of users, or be-
cause of some guidelines given by studies (De Jong, 1975;
Grefenstette, 1986), are fixed throughout the GA run in which envi-
ronmental change is ignored (McClintock, Lunney, & Hashim,
1997a, 1997b). However, biological evolution shows that the cross-
over rate and the mutation rate depend on the evolution state and
therefore they should be adapted to fit various states (Reed,
Toombs, & Barricelli, 1967). Since the decision of changing GA
control parameters involves uncertainty and vagueness, fuzzy logic
is suitable for controlling the crossover rate and the mutation rate
during the run of GA. Some studies such as King, Radha, and Rug-
hooputh (2004), Lotfi and Kashani (2004), Subbu, Sanderson, and
Bonissone (1998) and Song, Wang, Wang, and Johns (1997) tackled
various application problems and solved them by using GA with
fuzzy logic controlling various GA control parameters.
In this paper, we proposed to utilize a MOEA called a fuzzy logic
guided non-dominated sorting genetic algorithms 2 (FL-NSGA2) to
solve this multi-objective optimization problem. Also, NSGA2
(without the guide of fuzzy logic) (Deb, Agrawal, Pratap, &
Meyarivan, 2000; Deb, Pratap, Agrawal, & Meyarivan, 2002),
strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm 2 (SPEA2) (without the
guide of fuzzy logic) (Zitzler, Laumanns, & Thiele, 2001), FL-SPEA2
(with the guide of fuzzy logic), micro-genetic algorithm (MICROG-
A) (without the guide of fuzzy logic) (Coello Coello & Toscano
Pulido, 2001a, 2001b), and FL-MICROGA (with the guide of fuzzy
logic) were adopted so as to compare their performance with that
of FL-NSGA2.
This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents a litera-
ture review of VRPs and different application problems solved by
fuzzy controlled GA. Section 3 offers the mathematical formulation
of the VRP proposed in this paper. Section 4 provides the details of
GA, NSGA2, SPEA2, MICROGA and fuzzy logic. In Sections 5 and 6,
simulation results and conclusions are addressed.
2. Literature review
This section presents the related works dealing with VRPs
solved by employing different optimization techniques and studies
about different application problems solved by GA with fuzzy logic
controlling GA control parameters during the run of the GA.
Kallehauge et al. tackled the single-depot VRP with time win-
dows (Kallehauge et al., 2006). His aim was to minimize the total
path cost. The Lagrangian branch-and-cut-and-price (LBCP) algo-
rithm, in which the stabilized cutting-plane algorithm was embed-
ded in a branch-and-bound search and strong valid inequalities
were introduced at the master problem level by Lagrangian relax-
ation, was suggested for solving the problem. The advantage of
LBCP is that it gives a significant speed-up compared to an algo-
rithm based on traditional column generation. Two Homberger
problems with 400 and 1000 customers were tested and the results
showed that LBCP significantly outperformed a traditional column
generation based algorithm on a large number of test problems.
Renaud et al. coped with the multi-depot VRP whose objective
was to minimize the total routing cost (Renaud et al., 1996). The
search technique, the tabu search, was adopted to solve this prob-
lem. Twenty-three benchmark problems were tested and the stan-
dard version of the tabu search generated a best solution 20 times.
In the case of using various parameters, the tabu search generated
‘‘best solutions” in all of the 23 times it was used. Also, the trun-
cated version of the tabu search obtained by stopping after the
intensification phase is so fast and so highly competitive that it
generated a best solution 19 times out of 23.
Skok et al. dealt with the multi-depot VRP whose objective was
to minimize both traveling cost and vehicle acquisition cost (Skok
et al., 2000). The stochastic search algorithm, GA, was utilized to
solve the problem. A real instance problem was tested and the re-
sults revealed that there was compromise in finding a good solu-
tion and parameter tuning was required for obtaining the best
performance. For example, if the user wants a quick suggestion
of what the most desirable configuration should look like, a small
population with a higher value of parameter bias and a low value
of mutation rate should be adopted. This will cause the quick
spreading of a couple of good solutions over the entire population.
King et al. studied the application of a fuzzy controlled real
coded genetic algorithm to solve the electrical distribution net-
work reconfiguration problem (King et al., 2004). The objective
was to find a radial operating structure to minimize the system
power loss while satisfying operating constraints. The inputs to
both the crossover fuzzy controller and mutation fuzzy controller
were changes in average fitness at two consecutive steps. The out-
puts of the former and of the latter controller were the change in
crossover rate and mutation rate respectively. Sixteen-bus, 33-
bus systems and a real distribution system were tested in simula-
tions. The fuzzy logic controlled genetic algorithm found the global
optimum and had faster convergence than a genetic algorithm
using fixed crossover and fixed mutation rates, and that using fixed
crossover and adaptive mutation rates.
 H.C.W. Lau et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268 8257

Lotfi and Kashani tackled the problem of optimizing the band- Table 1
width of the E-shaped microstrip antenna, by using GA with fuzzy List of notations.
logic (Lotfi & Kashani, 2004). The input to both the crossover fuzzy Notation Meaning
controller and mutation fuzzy controller was population size. The
S Total number of depots
outputs of the former and of the latter controller were crossover T Total number of products
rate and mutation rate respectively. A wideband E-shaped patch U Total number of customers
antenna was adopted for the design and the result showed that D Index set of depots, D = {1, 2, . . ., S}
an increase in the bandwidth of 33.3% was obtained. P Index set of products, P = {1, 2, . . ., T}
C Index set of customers, C = {1, 2, . . ., U}
Song et al. dealt with an environmental/economic dispatch cmn Distance between node (customer or depot) m and node (customer or
problem by using fuzzy logic controlled genetic algorithm (Song depot) n, "m e (C [ D), "n e (C [ D) (unit: km)
et al., 1997). The objective was to minimize both expected fuel cost tmn Time required to traverse between node (customer or depot) m and
and expected NOx emission. The inputs to both the crossover fuzzy node (customer or depot) n, "m e (C [ D), "n e (C [ D) (unit: min)
sij Supply of product j from depot i, "i e D, "j e P
controller and mutation fuzzy controller were changes in average
djm Demand of product j for node (customer) m, "j e P, "m e C
fitness at two consecutive generations. The outputs of the former vj Volume of product j, "j e P (unit: cm3)
and of the latter controller were the change in crossover rate and cm i Capacity of the vehicle serving depot i, "i e D (unit: cm3)
mutation rate respectively. Two six-generator systems were em- ximn ximn = 1 if the vehicle serving depot i visits node (customer or depot) n
ployed in the simulations and the proposed method could acquire after leaving node (customer or depot) m in the established route. 0
otherwise, "i e D, "m e (C [ D), "n e (C [ D)
improved performance compared to conventional GA and the
Newton–Raphson method.
Previous work focused only on a single objective approach
where the problem objectives were combined to form one objec-
tive function. Nevertheless, we found that these two objectives ex- Minimize total traveling distance f1 and total traveling time f2
ist as trade-off properties. Therefore, we employed a multi-
objective approach to search for non-dominated trade-off solutions X X X
f1 ¼ cmn  ximn ð1Þ
for the VRP. Because each of these solutions can be a possible solu- i2D m2ðC[DÞ n2ðC[DÞ
tion to the problem, choosing a solution can be done according to X X X
the preferences of the decision makers. The advantage of a multi- f2 ¼ t mn  ximn ð2Þ
i2D m2ðC[DÞ n2ðC[DÞ
objective approach is that it can give us more flexibility due to
there being a family of solutions, rather than just one solution. subject to
Moreover, the above applications tackled by GA with fuzzy logic
X X
controlling GA parameters, mainly used the difference between djm ximn  sij ; 8i 2 D; 8j 2 P ðC1 Þ
two average fitness values of the population obtained from two m2C n2ðC[DÞ
consecutive generations as inputs of fuzzy controllers. However,
XX X
djm  v j ximn  cv i ; 8i 2 D ðC2 Þ
we proposed using ten consecutive generations instead of two con- j2P m2C n2ðC[DÞ
secutive generations. Furthermore, only average fitness of the pop- X X
ximn ¼ 1; 8n 2 C ðC3 Þ
ulation was considered as an input of the fuzzy controllers in the
i2D m2ðC[DÞ
above applications, but we suggested adding another input, popu- X X
lation diversity, to the fuzzy controllers. The reasons for these two xinm ¼ ximn ; 8i 2 D; 8m 2 ðC [ DÞ ðC4 Þ
n2ðC[DÞ n2ðC[DÞ
modifications are given in Section 4. XX
ximn  jSj  1; 8S # C; jSj  2; 8i 2 D ðC5 Þ
m2S n2S

3. Mathematical formulation sij 2 N; 8i 2 D; 8j 2 P ðC6 Þ

In this section, the mathematical model of the suggested VRP in
this paper will be given. The notations that will be adopted are
shown in Table 1.
The VRP can be viewed as a graph-theory problem. Let G = (V, A)
be a graph where V = {1, 2, . . ., S + U} is the index set of vertices
(nodes) and A = {(1, 2), (1, 3), . . ., (u, v)} is the set of undirected arcs
(links), u–v ; u < v ; 8u 2 V; 8v 2 V. In the graph, a node is a depot
or customer and each pair of nodes is connected by an undirected
link. Also, it is assumed that jDj  jCj. Each depot stores and sup-
plies various products, and has only one vehicle to serve customers
who demand different quantities of various products. Each vehicle
starts the tour from the depot where it normally resides, delivers
products to a number of customers and returns to the same depot.
Fig. 1 gives a pictorial view of the sample VRP with 2 depots and 6
customers. A vehicle from depot 1 takes the route (depot 1 ? cus-
tomer 3 ? customer 5 ? depot 1) while another vehicle from de-
pot 2 uses the route (depot 2 ? customer 6 ? customer 4 ?
customer 1 ? customer 2 ? depot 2).
As mentioned in Section 1, the objectives of the VRP in this pa-
per are to minimize the total distance traveled of all vehicles and
the total time required for all vehicles to serve customers, subject
to a number of constraints. Now, the VRP is mathematically
formulated as
djk 2 N; 8j 2 P; 8k 2 C ðC7 Þ
ximn 2 f0; 1g; 8i 2 D; 8m 2 ðC [ DÞ; 8n 2 ðC [ DÞ ðC8 Þ
Constraint (C1) requires that, for each product stored in each de-
pot, the supply of the product from the depot must be greater than
or equal to the demand for the product by customers served by the
same depot. Constraint (C2) requires that, for the vehicle in each
depot, the total volume of the different products demanded by cus-
tomers served by the same depot must be smaller than or equal to
the maximum capacity of the vehicle. Constraint (C3) requires that
each customer must be serviced exactly once by only one vehicle.
Constraint (C4) is a flow constraint which requires that any vehicle
that enters a customer location must leave the same customer
location. Constraint (C5) is a subtour elimination constraint which
requires that each vehicle must visit customers in a complete tour,
but not in two or more subtours. Constraints (C6) and (C7) require
that the values of supply and demand of products must be natural
numbers (i.e. zero or positive integers) respectively. Constraint (C8)
requires that the values of the decision variables must be limited to
be 0 or 1 only.
It should be noted that traveling distance and traveling time
considered in this VRP are not symmetrical since traffic conditions
usually affect the traffic only in one direction. Also, an optimal
solution to the problem may not require the deployment of all
8258 H.C.W. Lau et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268

At generation t + 1, pc(t + 1) and pm(t + 1) will be adjusted as

3
Depot22 pc ðt þ 1Þ ¼ pc ðtÞ þ Dpc ðt þ 1Þ ð6Þ
2 pm ðt þ 1Þ ¼ pm ðtÞ þ Dpm ðt þ 1Þ ð7Þ
respectively and MOEA will use pc(t + 1) and pm(t + 1) instead of
pc(t) and pm(t) to proceed the search at generation t + 1. When gen-
eration t + 10 is finished, fa(t + 1), fa(t + 10) and d(t + 10) are ob-
4
6 tained, i.e.
h : fpc ðt þ 1Þ; pm ðt þ 1Þg ! ffa ðt þ 1Þ; fa ðt þ 10Þ; dðt þ 10Þg ð8Þ

1 or equivalently
h : fpc ðtÞ þ Dpc ðt þ 1Þ; pm ðtÞ þ Dpm ðt þ 1Þg
! ffa ðt þ 1Þ; fa ðt þ 10Þ; dðt þ 10Þg ð9Þ

Depot 11
Depot 5 After constructing this model, the details of implementation of GA
and fuzzy logic will be provided in the following subsections.

Fig. 1. An illustration of VRP. 4.1. Genetic algorithms (GA)

vehicles. Thus, solutions with the use of all or only some of the GA is an effective search technique which was proposed by Hol-
vehicles are both allowed. land (1975). It is a parallel search algorithm that imitates the
mechanism of natural selection and the survival of the fittest as
4. Fuzzy logic guided multi-objective evolutionary algorithm witnessed in natural evolution. It comprises a population of chro-
mosomes (individuals), selection, crossover and mutation. Once
As mentioned in Section 1, in order to improve the search per- the objective function of a considered problem is defined, its vari-
formance of MOEA, it was proposed to use fuzzy logic for adjusting ables can be encoded into the genes of any chromosome. The de-
the crossover rate and mutation rate in ten consecutive genera- tails of GA can be found in Michalewicz (1996) and Goldberg
tions instead of two consecutive generations as used in Song (1989).
et al. (1997). The reason is that this can provide sufficient time
for MOEA to respond to the change. The average fitness values of 4.1.1. Notations and definitions
the population and population diversity were taken as inputs to The notations and definitions that will be used in the GA are gi-
fuzzy controllers for controlling crossover and mutation rates be- ven as follows.
cause appropriate crossover and mutation rates can improve the Definition 1: Ch = {1, 2, . . ., X} represents the index set of chromo-
search performance reflected by the average fitness values of the somes where X is the total number of chromosomes in the
population. They can also control the population diversity to pre- population.
vent premature convergence from happening in the population. Definition 2: Ga(b+c) represents a gene matrix generated for the
The model of fuzzy logic guided MOEA (FL-MOEA) is portrayed in population where
2  3
Fig. 2. g 11 g 12 . . . g 1b  g 011 g 012 . . . g 01c

The implementation of FL-MOEA is given as follows. Let 6g
6 21 g 22 . . . g 2b  g 021 g 022 ... g 02c7
7
fa(t  9), fa(t), fa(t + 1) and fa(t + 10) be the average fitness values GaðbþcÞ ¼6  7
6 .. .. .. ..  .. .. .. .. 7
of the population obtained at generations t  9, t, t + 1, and 4 . . . .  . . . . 5
t + 10, respectively, d(t) and d(t + 10) be the degree of population g a1 g a2 . . . g ab  g 0a1 g 0a2 ... g 0ac
diversity at generations t and t + 10, respectively, pc(t) and pm(t)
be the crossover rate and mutation rate adopted at generation t,
respectively, Dpc(t + 1) and Dpm(t + 1) be the change of crossover ¼ ð ðg sw Þab ðg 0sz Þac Þ
rate and mutation rate at generation t + 1, respectively, gc and gm g sw ¼ drandomð0; jCj  jDj þ 1e; g 0sz ¼ drandomð0; jCje;
P
be the fuzzy controller functions for controlling crossover rate g sw ¼ U
and mutation rate, respectively, and h be the MOEA function. w2D

When the generation t is reached, the values of fa(t  9), fa(t), 8s 2 C h ; 8w 2 D; 8z 2 C; a ¼ X; b ¼ S; c¼U
and d(t) are inputted to the two fuzzy controllers. The physical
Definition 3: Ra1 denotes a random number matrix generated
meaning of d is to evaluate the average of bit difference of all pairs
for selection and crossover where
of chromosomes in the population. This can be calculated by using
the following formula, 2 3
r1
1 X
N X
N X
M
dðg ik ; g jk Þ 6r 7
d¼h i ð3Þ 6 27
NðN1Þ M Ra1 ¼6 7
6 .. 7 ¼ ðrs Þa1
2 i¼1 j¼iþ1 k¼1 4 . 5
where N is the total number of chromosomes in the population, M is ra
the chromosome length, gik is the value of kth gene of ith chromo- r s ¼ random½0; 1; 8s 2 C h ; a¼X
some, and d(gik, gjk) = 1 if gik – gjk, 0 otherwise.
Then, the two fuzzy controllers will determine the values of Definition 4: Ch_c = {1, 2, . . ., Y} denotes the index set of chosen
Dpc(t + 1) and Dpm(t + 1) as the outputs, i.e. chromosomes in crossover where Y is the total number of chosen
chromosomes.
g c : ffa ðtÞ  fa ðt  9Þ; dðtÞg ! Dpc ðt þ 1Þ ð4Þ Definition 5: G0dðbþcÞ indicates the gene matrix in which the Y
g m : ffa ðtÞ  fa ðt  9Þ; dðtÞg ! Dpm ðt þ 1Þ ð5Þ chosen chromosomes in crossover are stored where
 H.C.W. Lau et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268 8259

Fig. 2. Model of fuzzy logic guided multi-objective evolutionary algorithm.

2  3
r11 r12 . . . r1b  r011 r012 . . . r01c After finishing the above two steps, these chosen chromosomes
6r  0 7
6 21 r22 . . . r2b  r21 r22 . . . r2c 7
0 0
are stored in the gene matrix G0dðbþcÞ . Since the second part of each
G0dðbþcÞ ¼6  7 chromosome is order of customers that requires that each cus-
6 .. .. .. ..  .. .. .. .. 7
4 . . . .  . . . . 5
 tomer can be visited once only (i.e. two genes having the same in-
rd1 rd2 . . . rdb  r0 r0d2    r0dc
d1 dex of customer are prohibited) but such restriction is not imposed
in the first part, a specially designed crossover operation called
¼ ð ðrtw Þdb ðr0tz Þdc Þ partial uniform and partial order (PUPO) crossover is suggested
for resolving this problem.
8t 2 C h c ; 8w 2 D; 8z 2 C; d ¼ Y; b ¼ S; c¼U
The PUPO crossover comprises two types of crossover, (i) uni-
Definition 6: mask1b represents a mask matrix generated for form crossover, and (ii) order crossover, which are adopted for
uniform crossover in partial uniform and partial order (PUPO) the first and second part of chromosomes, respectively. Fig. 4 de-
crossover where picts the operation of the PUPO crossover. Note that only the first
part of chromosomes is shown in Fig. 4a but only the second part of
mask1b ¼ ½ m1 m2    mb  ¼ ðmw Þ1b
chromosomes is shown in Fig. 4b.
mw ¼ randomf0; 1g; 8w 2 D; b¼S Its implementation procedures are provided as follows.
Definition 7: p1 and p2 indicate two randomly generated cut (First part of chromosome: uniform crossover)
points for order crossover in partial uniform and partial order
(PUPO) crossover where p1 < p2. Step 1: Generate mask1b.
Step 2: If mw = 1, exchange r(2y1)w and r(2y)w,
4.1.2. Chromosome representation y ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; Y2 ; 8w 2 D where y is the index of chromo-
Based on the objective function f defined in Section 3, the fac- some pair.
tors which can affect the objective value are: (i) assignment of each
customer to only one vehicle, and (ii) the order of customers to be For example, in Fig. 4a, as the values of m2 and m4 are 1, the cor-
served by each vehicle. As a result, each chromosome includes two responding genes of the parent 1 and 2 are exchanged.
parts for these two factors. The first part is the number of custom- (Second part of chromosome: order crossover)
ers for each vehicle to serve and the second part is the order of cus-
tomers for each vehicle to serve. Fig. 3 illustrates the chromosome Step 1: Randomly generate p1 and p2 for both parent 1 and 2.
encoding method. Assume that there are 20 customers and 4 vehi- Step 2: Copy the genes between p1 and p2 of parent 1 to offspring 1.
cles considered. The vehicle 1 serves 6 customers (18, 5, 12, 10, 4
and 9) in order. The vehicle 2 serves 3 customers (7, 15 and 1) in For example, in Fig. 4b, the genes (9, 6, 4 and 5) between the
order. The vehicle 3 serves 5 customers (16, 17, 20, 3 and 11) in or- two cut points p1 = 4 and p2 = 8 of parent 1 are copied to offspring
der. Finally, the vehicle 4 serves 6 customers (2, 6, 8, 14, 13 and 19) 1.
in order.
Step 1: Starting from the cut point p2 of parent 2 at right hand
4.1.3. Crossover side and wrapping around at the end, select and copy
Crossover is a genetic operation which is adopted to exchange genes, which are different from those in the copied seg-
information between two chromosomes for genetic exploration. ment of parent 1, to offspring 1 in order.
Not all chromosomes are chosen for performing crossover.
Whether a chromosome is selected or not is determined by a cross- For example, in Fig. 4b, the genes (1, 10, 3, 7, 8 and 2) of par-
over rate pc. The procedures for picking chromosomes for imple- ent 2 are selected and, starting from the first unfilled gene of
menting the crossover are given as follows. offspring 1 at right hand side, they are copied to the offspring
1 in order.
Step 1: Generate Ra1 .
Step 2: If rs 6 pc, select ð ðg sw Þ1b ðg 0sz Þ1c Þ, "s e Ch, "w e D, "z e C, Step 1: Repeat steps 3, 4 and 5 for producing offspring 2.
b = S, c = U.
8260 H.C.W. Lau et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268

Numberofcustomers Order of customers for each vehicle to serve

for each vehicle to serve

Chromosome 6 3 5 6 18 5 12 10 4 9 7 15 1 16 17 20 3 11 2 6 8 14 13 19

Vehicle 1 serves Vehicle 2 serves Vehicle 3 serves Vehicle 4 serves

6 customers 3 customers 5 customers 6 customers

Fig. 3. Chromosome encoding method.

Mask 0 1 0 1

Parent 1 2 3 2 3
Before crossover
Parent 2 4 2 3 1

Offspring 1 2 2 2 1
After crossover

Offspring 2 4 3 3 3

(a) Uniform crossover

Cut points
p1 = 4 p2 = 8

Parent 1 8 3 10 1 9 6 4 5 2 7

Parent 2 6 5 3 7 8 2 9 4 1 10

Offspring 1 Offspring 2

9 6 4 5 8 2 9 4

1, 10, 3, 7, 8, 2 7, 3, 10, 1, 6, 5

3 7 8 2 9 6 4 5 1 10 10 1 6 5 8 2 9 4 7 3

(b) Order crossover

Fig. 4. Partial uniform and partial order (PUPO) crossover.

the first and second part of chromosomes, respectively. Fig. 5 de-

4.1.4. Mutation
Mutation is another genetic operation which provides diversity
for the solutions so as to prevent them from falling into local opti-
ma. Not all genes are chosen for performing mutation. Whether a
gene is selected or not is determined by a mutation rate pm. Like
crossover, since two genes having the same index of customer
are not allowed in the second part of each chromosome but this
limitation is not imposed in the first part, a specially designed
mutation operation called partial uniform and partial swap (PUPS)
mutation is proposed for resolving this problem.
The PUPS mutation consists of two types of mutation, (i) uni-
form mutation, and (ii) swap mutation, which are adopted for
picts the operation of the PUPS mutation. It should be noted that
only the first part of chromosome is shown in Fig. 5a but only
the second part of chromosome is shown in Fig. 5b.
Fig. 5a portrays the operation of uniform mutation. Suppose
that gene 3 with value 2 is chosen. This value is replaced by an-
other uniform random value generated between [1, |C|  |D| + 1].
In this example, the random value 4 is produced. Moreover,
Fig. 5b shows the operation of swap mutation. It is assumed that
gene 6 with value 6 is chosen. It is now required to randomly se-
lect another gene, say, gene 3 with value 10 for swapping. Then,
these two genes are exchanged to complete this mutation
operation.
 H.C.W. Lau et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268
Parent 2 3 2 3 Before mutation
Mutate
Offspring 2 3 4 3 After mutation
(a) Uniform mutation
Parent 8 3 10 1 9 6 4 5 2 7
Exchange
Offspring 8 3 6 1 9 10 4 5 2 7 After mutation
(b) Swap mutation
Fig. 5. Partial uniform and partial swap (PUPS) mutation.
4.1.5. Repair
After performing crossover and/or mutation, the first part of any
chromosome may be invalid because the sum of values of all genes
in this part can be smaller than or greater than the total number of
customers but not exactly equal. Accordingly, it is necessary to re-
pair the genes in this part. The idea of repair is to iteratively and
randomly select a gene, and increase (for ‘‘smaller than” case) or
decrease (for ‘‘greater than” case) its value by 1 until the ‘‘equal”
case is satisfied. We name it as cyclic repair here.
Fig. 6 illustrates the operation of cyclic repair. Assume that
there are 10 customers considered. However, the sum of values
of all genes is equal to 12 which belongs to the ‘‘greater than” case.
The gene 2 with value 3 is randomly chosen and this value is de-
creased by 1. But, the sum is equal to 11 which is still greater than
10. Then, another gene 4 with value 3 is randomly selected and this
value is reduced by 1 again. The sum is now equal to 10 and there-
fore the repair operation finishes. If this example is the ‘‘smaller
than” case, the same procedures are applied except that the gene
value reduction is replaced by addition.
4.1.6. Non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm 2 (NSGA2)
NSGA2 was proposed by Deb et al. (2000, 2002). It uses a rank-
ing scheme called the fast non-dominated sorting approach which
requires a computational complexity of at most O(MN2), to rank
the individuals, where M is the number of objectives and N is pop-
ulation size. In this approach, each solution in the population is
checked with a partially filled population for domination. Also, a
crowding distance assignment approach is adopted to estimate
the density of solutions surrounding a particular point in the pop-
ulation. The crowding distance is defined as the average distance of
the two points on either side of the particular point being consid-
ered, along each of the objectives. Additionally, the crowded com-
parison operator, which aims at obtaining a uniformly distributed
Off spring 2 3 4 3
Off spring 2 2 4 3
Off spring 2 2 4 2
Fig. 6. Cyclic repair.
8261
Pareto-optimal front, is added in the selection process. This opera-
tor ensures that the solution with the lower rank is chosen when
two solutions have different ranks. In case these two solutions
have the same rank, the solution located in a less crowded region
(i.e. has a larger crowding distance) is preferred. The detailed pro-
cedures of the fast non-dominated sorting approach, the crowding
distance assignment approach and the crowded comparison oper-
ation can be reviewed in Deb et al. (2000, 2002).
Before mutation One of the major issues for optimizing a real-world problem is
constraint handling. The constraint handling method used in the
NSGA2 is described as follows: Given that a solution i is said to
constrain-dominate a solution j, then the following conditions
must apply:
1. Solution i is feasible and solution j is infeasible.
2. Solutions i and j are both infeasible, but solution i has a smaller
overall constraint violation.
3. Solutions i and j are feasible and solution i dominates solution j.
These are the constrained-domination principles that ensure
any feasible solution is assigned a better non-domination rank
than any infeasible solution. All feasible solutions are ranked on
the basis of their objective values. Nevertheless, with infeasible
solutions, the one with a smaller sum of constraint violation of
all constraints is assigned a better rank.
4.1.7. Strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm 2 (SPEA2)
SPEA2 was suggested by Zitzler et al. (2001). The fitness value in
SPEA2 is not based on rank but on the sum of the raw fitness and
the density value. To find the raw fitness value, first, each solution
in the population and in the archive is assigned a strength value
that represents the number of solutions it dominates. Then, the
raw fitness value is calculated by summing the strengths of its
dominators in both archive and population. The density value is
obtained by using a density estimation technique called kth near-
est neighbor method. On the other hand, an archive truncation
method is developed to remove excessive solutions in the most
crowded regions in order to maintain the constant size of the ar-
chive. The detailed procedures of the strength value assignment,
the density value estimation and the archive truncation method
can be seen in Zitzler et al. (2001). Also, the constraint handling
method of SPEA2 used in the simulations is the same as that in
NSGA2.
4.1.8. Micro-genetic algorithm (MICROGA)
MICROGA was suggested by Coello Coello and Toscano Pulido
(2001a, 2001b). It has three features, population memory, adaptive
grid algorithm, and three types of elitism. The population memory
is divided into two parts, replaceable and non-replaceable. The
replaceable part undergoes some change after each cycle of the
MICROGA. In contrast, the non-replaceable part is never changed
during the run and its aim is to provide the required diversity for
the algorithm. The adaptive grid algorithm is employed to offer
the diversity to non-dominated solutions. Once the archive storing
the non-dominated solutions reaches its limit, the objective space
covered by the archive is divided into a number of grids. Then, each
solution in the archive is assigned a set of coordinates. In elitism, in
the first type, non-dominated solutions found within the internal
cycle of the MICROGA are stored. The second type of elitism is
where nominal solutions (i.e. the best solutions found when the
nominal convergence is reached) are added to the replaceable part
of the population memory. In the last type, a certain number of
solutions from all the regions of the Pareto front generated so far
are uniformly picked and included to the replaceable part of the
population memory. The constraint handling method of MICROGA
used in the simulations is the same as that in NSGA2.
8262 H.C.W. Lau et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268

4.2. Fuzzy logic

NLR NL NM NS Z PS PM PL PLR
1
Fuzzy logic, which was suggested by Zadeh (1965), is a powerful
and useful tool for performing reasoning in decision-making prob-
lems involving uncertainty and vagueness. It consists of three main
processes, (a) fuzzification, (b) rule base reasoning, and (c) defuzz- 0
ification. The details of fuzzy logic can be found in Chen and Pham -500 -400 -300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300 400 500
(2001). The method of fuzzification used in this paper is similar to (a) f a (t ) f a (t 9)
that in the study (Song et al., 1997).

4.2.1. Fuzzification VS S SS LM M UM SL L VL
Before performing fuzzification, it is necessary to choose mem- 1

bership functions for associating system input and output values

with fuzzy input and output membership values. However, there
is no universal rule or criterion for selecting a membership func- 0
tion and it should be chosen based on the user’s knowledge and 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
experience (Chen & Pham, 2001). Also, it is recommended that
parameterizable membership functions should be employed (Yen
(b) d (t )
& Langari, 1999). Therefore, triangular membership functions,
Fig. 7. Membership functions of fa(t)  fa(t  9) and d(t) .
which are those membership functions which are used in common
practice (Yen & Langari, 1999), were adopted in this study. The
meaning of each linguistic term in the selected membership func-
tions is tabulated in Tables 2 and 3. The membership functions of NLR NL NM NS Z PS PM PL PLR
1
the two system inputs, fa(t)  fa(t  9) and d(t) for the two fuzzy
controllers are shown in Figs. 7a and b, respectively. Also, the
membership functions of the two system outputs, Dpc(t + 1) and
Dpm(t + 1) are depicted in Figs. 8a and b, respectively. The mem- 0
bership function lA of a fuzzy set A is expressed as -0.1 -0.08 -0.06 -0.04 -0.02 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
lA : v ! ½0; 1 ð10Þ (a) p c (t + 1)
where v is the universal set.
NLR NL NM NS Z PS PM P PLR
4.2.2. Rule base reasoning 1
After obtaining input membership values, output membership
values can be inferred from input ones through a number of IF-
THEN rules which are commonly expressed in the form of a rule ta-
0
ble. Expert knowledge and experience are required for designing
-0.01 -0.008 -0.006 -0.004 -0.002 0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01
these rules (Lee, 1990). We devised four possible sets of rules for
output membership values of Dpc(t + 1) and Dpm(t + 1), which are (b) p m (t + 1)

Fig. 8. Membership functions of Dpc(t + 1) and Dpm(t + 1) .

Table 2
Meaning of each linguistic term.
tabulated in Table 4. An example of the rules, which is highlighted
Linguistic Terms for fa(t)  fa(t  9), Dpc(t + 1), and Dpm(t + 1) Meaning
in Table 4a, is shown as follows:
NLR Negative larger
IF fa(t)  fa(t  9) is PLR AND d(t) is VL, THEN output is Z.
NL Negative large
NM Negative medium As a result, there are a total of 12 combination sets of rules for
NS Negative small output membership values of Dpc(t + 1) and Dpm(t + 1) as shown in
Z Zero Table 5. Note that the roles of crossover and mutation in GA are dif-
PS Positive small ferent. Different sets of rules should be adopted for output mem-
PM Positive medium
bership values of Dpc(t + 1) and Dpm(t + 1). From the authors’
PL Positive large
PLR Positive larger point of view, set 1 is the best choice. In order to verify this is
the correct selection, simulations were carried out to test and com-
pare the performance of all 12 sets. The results and discussion are
given in Section 5.1.
Table 3
Meanings of linguistic terms for d(t).
4.2.3. Defuzzification
Linguistic Terms for d(t) Meaning
Defuzzification aims at generating a single crisp value by using
VS Very small a defuzzification formula and fuzzy output membership values.
S Small There is no unique defuzzification method and each proposed
SS Slightly small
LM Lower medium
defuzzification method has both advantages and disadvantages.
M Medium The center of area is one of the most common approaches and this
UM Upper medium was the one which was adopted in the simulations. The reason for
SL Slightly large choosing center of area is that its operations are simple in that no
L Large
multiplications or divisions are involved and therefore it is fast to
VL Very large
give the outputs (i.e. crossover rate and mutation rate) to MOEA for
 H.C.W. Lau et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268 8263

Table 4
Four possible sets of IF-THEN rules.

d(t) fa(t)  fa(t  9)

NLR NL NM NS Z PS PM PL PLR
(a) First set
VL PLR PLR PL PL PM PM PS PS Z
L PLR PL PL PM PM PS PS Z NS
SL PL PL PM PM PS PS Z NS NS
UM PL PM PM PS PS Z NS NS NM
M PM PM PS PS Z NS NS NM NM
LM PM PS PS Z NS NS NM NM NL
SS PS PS Z NS NS NM NM NL NL Fig. 9. Defuzzification method, center of area.
S PS Z NS NS NM NM NL NL NLR
VS Z NS NS NM NM NL NL NLR NLR
(b) Second set Table 6
VL NLR NLR NL NL NM NM NS NS Z MOEAs’ parameters.
L NLR NL NL NM NM NS NS Z PS
SL NL NL NM NM NS NS Z PS PS Parameter Value/type
UM NL NM NM NS NS Z PS PS PM
Population size (NSGA2, SPEA2, FL-NSGA2, FL-SPEA2) 100
M NM NM NS NS Z PS PS PM PM
Population size (MICROGA, FL-MICROGA) 4
LM NM NS NS Z PS PS PM PM PL
Maximum generations (NSGA2, SPEA2, FL-NSGA2, FL-SPEA2) 1500
SS NS NS Z PS PS PM PM PL PL
Maximum generations (NSGA2, SPEA2, FL-NSGA2, FL-SPEA2) 37,500
S NS Z PS PS PM PM PL PL PLR
Crossover probability 0.85
VS Z PS PS PM PM PL PL PLR PLR
Mutation probability 0.05
(c) Third set Archive size (SPEA2, FL-SPEA2) 100
VL Z PS PS PM PM PL PL PLR PLR Size of external memory (MICROGA, FL-MICROGA) 100
L NS Z PS PS PM PM PL PL PLR Size of population memory (MICROGA, FL-MICROGA) 80
SL NS NS Z PS PS PM PM PL PL Percentage of non-replaceable memory (MICROGA, FL-MICROGA) 0.25
UM NM NS NS Z PS PS PM PM PL Replacement cycle (MICROGA, FL-MICROGA) Every 25
M NM NM NS NS Z PS PS PM PM iterations
LM NL NM NM NS NS Z PS PS PM Number of subdivisions of the adaptive grid (MICROGA, FL- 25
SS NL NL NM NM NS NS Z PS PS MICROGA)
S NLR NL NL NM NM NS NS Z PS Number of iterations of the micro-GA (to achieve nominal 4
VS NLR NLR NL NL NM NM NS NS Z convergence) (MICROGA, FL-MICROGA)
(d) Fourth set
VL Z NS NS NM NM NL NL NLR NLR
L PS Z NS NS NM NM NL NL NLR
SL PS PS Z NS NS NM NM NL NL since both Dpc(t + 1) and Dpm(t + 1) utilize the same
UM PM PS PS Z NS NS NM NM NL defuzzification method, p is used to represent either
M PM PM PS PS Z NS NS NM NM Dpc(t + 1) or Dpm(t + 1).
LM PL PM PM PS PS Z NS NS NM
Step 2: The crisp value, p*, is calculated by using the following
SS PL PL PM PM PS PS Z NS NS
S PLR PL PL PM PM PS PS Z NS formula,
VS PLR PLR PL PL PM PM PS PS Z Pq1
e¼1 v e  lð v e Þ
p ¼ Pq1 ð11Þ
e¼1 lðv e Þ

where q is the total number of equal subintervals.

Table 5
Twelve combination sets of rules for output membership values of Dpc(t + 1) and
Dpm(t + 1). 5. Simulation results
Set number Dpc(t + 1) Dpm(t + 1)
This section will present the details of simulation implementa-
1 Table 4a Table 4b
2 Table 4a Table 4c tion and the performance comparison of various MOEAs. Three sce-
3 Table 4a Table 4d narios of VRP, (i) 5 depots and 50 customers, (ii) 15 depots and 150
4 Table 4b Table 4a customers, (iii) 25 depots and 250 customers, were produced for
5 Table 4b Table 4c the simulations. In each scenario, we considered 10 various data
6 Table 4b Table 4d
7 Table 4c Table 4a
sets for which the distances between each pair of nodes (customer
8 Table 4c Table 4b or depot), supply of each product from each depot, demand for
9 Table 4c Table 4d each product by each customer, and volume of each product were
10 Table 4d Table 4a randomly generated. The model of time-dependent travel time and
11 Table 4d Table 4b
the travel speed matrices given in Ichoua et al. (2003) were
12 Table 4d Table 4c
adopted in the simulations.
As mentioned before, a number of MOEAs, i.e. NSGA2, SPEA2,
FL-SPEA2, MICROGA, and FL-MICROGA were utilized to compare
with FL-NSGA2 via simulations. All of them used the same chromo-
minimizing its waiting time. Fig. 9 depicts this method, and its some encoding method, crossover operation and mutation opera-
implementation procedures are given as follows. tion as described in the previous section. In order to produce fair
performance comparisons of various MOEAs, the number of objec-
Step 1: Suppose that the aggregated output lies on membership tive function evaluations remained the same for all of them. Then,
functions of NL and NM as shown in Fig. 9. Divide the in the parameter settings, the population size and maximum gen-
interval [v0, v10] of aggregated output p into a number erations of each MOEA were adjusted to fulfill this criterion. The
of equal subintervals, say, 10 equal subintervals. Note that crossover type and probability, and mutation type and probability
8264 H.C.W. Lau et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268

Table 7
Means of the Deb and Jain convergence metric for the 10 different data sets of a selected scenario (ii).

Data set Rule set

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1 0.141359 0.293852 0.171352 0.464943 0.471691 0.385142 0.401618 0.235673 0.200845 0.320441 0.178848 0.444469
2 0.180874 0.283856 0.247307 0.447561 0.409153 0.324067 0.375387 0.227589 0.212396 0.370969 0.260283 0.424961
3 0.163584 0.329939 0.220447 0.433394 0.395968 0.276373 0.365817 0.242961 0.188052 0.318964 0.234185 0.387146
4 0.170928 0.308979 0.162028 0.387719 0.387267 0.360253 0.377841 0.271033 0.264681 0.401843 0.243291 0.401747
5 0.193287 0.279557 0.232581 0.409521 0.426558 0.284043 0.369356 0.231049 0.247006 0.342518 0.286977 0.351588
6 0.189655 0.310347 0.251181 0.372817 0.419932 0.305904 0.313806 0.289035 0.252103 0.367529 0.291131 0.373446
7 0.210682 0.301251 0.248271 0.299318 0.379499 0.343378 0.381112 0.252735 0.268483 0.419732 0.277435 0.428074
8 0.190352 0.272405 0.228415 0.311782 0.404922 0.304938 0.412266 0.253252 0.245404 0.356774 0.279432 0.458226
9 0.155247 0.290236 0.260374 0.416384 0.387499 0.326901 0.409116 0.300287 0.208522 0.307147 0.256107 0.369735
10 0.175071 0.311486 0.245415 0.397545 0.425658 0.275591 0.372734 0.290356 0.221867 0.420432 0.262957 0.382031

Table 8
Means of the spread for the 10 different data sets of a selected scenario (ii).

Data set Rule set

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1 0.507248 0.722773 0.587069 0.616199 0.761895 0.613956 0.879910 0.590301 0.533097 0.859111 0.566225 0.624775
2 0.544564 0.894253 0.614790 0.689688 0.989196 0.840449 0.819915 0.605417 0.590014 0.968526 0.631327 0.674215
3 0.598051 0.675176 0.625578 0.712073 0.939024 0.866826 0.781196 0.567095 0.643692 0.785584 0.648051 0.702714
4 0.606892 0.845378 0.665075 0.786884 0.836946 0.847918 0.796577 0.641377 0.642247 0.901481 0.659932 0.738456
5 0.588127 0.777978 0.657241 0.741874 0.788828 0.730705 0.693697 0.661176 0.660647 0.858297 0.657064 0.686192
6 0.627822 0.758843 0.648386 0.762233 0.799259 0.702396 0.869716 0.650563 0.653433 0.866131 0.701202 0.700697
7 0.576662 0.726849 0.632121 0.784936 0.962584 0.855504 0.782215 0.631598 0.637432 0.806675 0.606143 0.720801
8 0.636283 0.823897 0.703711 0.754498 0.886801 0.790826 0.741196 0.645775 0.660695 0.788049 0.649384 0.695998
9 0.620233 0.799936 0.686725 0.705814 0.797957 0.770425 0.773944 0.689472 0.615376 0.771548 0.682535 0.747556
10 0.591692 0.711445 0.669858 0.733909 0.786972 0.805224 0.856145 0.693059 0.672292 0.831708 0.716328 0.699589

of MOEAs were the same, for the sake of fair comparison. All of
other unique parameters for each MOEA were set to the best
parameters reported from the past studies. Table 6 shows the
MOEAs’ parameters used in the simulations.
To evaluate the quality of non-dominated solution sets found by
each MOEA, two performance metrics, Deb and Jain convergence
metric (Deb & Jain, 2002) and spread (Deb, 2001), were adopted
in the analysis. The former one was for evaluating the closeness be-
tween the non-dominated solution set found by a MOEA and the
reference solution set, i.e. convergence. The latter one was for eval-
uating the spread of the non-dominated solution set along the ref-
erence solution set, i.e. diversity. 50 simulation runs were
performed for each MOEA in each of 10 data sets. The means of
the two performance metrics were then obtained.
Since a set of true Pareto-optimal solutions is unknown for each
of 10 data sets, a set of reference solutions was found to approxi-
mate the true Pareto-optimal set for the calculations of the perfor-
mance metrics. This reference set was obtained by incorporating
the MOEAs’ parameters shown in Table 6 together with arbitrarily
assigned longer running times (3000 generations for NSGA2,
SPEA2, FL-NSGA2 and FL-SPEA2, and 75,000 generations for MIC-
ROGA and FL-MICROGA).
5.1. Performance comparison of different sets of fuzzy IF-THEN rules
The means of the Deb and Jain convergence metric and spread
for the 10 different data sets of a selected scenario (ii) are tabulated
in Tables 7 and 8, respectively. Note that the rule set numbers are
the same as those listed in Table 5. Also, the best metric value (i.e.
the most minimum value) of Deb and Jain convergence metric and
spread in each data set is highlighted in bold type. For the results of
Deb and Jain convergence metric, the rule set 1 obtained the best
metric value for all data sets, except set 4. For the results of spread,
the rule set 1 acquired the best metric value for all data sets, except
sets 3 and 9. This showed that the rule set 1 is the best performer of
all twelve rule sets and therefore is the most suitable choice.
The reason why the rule set 1 is the most appropriate one is that
if the difference between the average fitness values of the popula-
tion is NLR and the population diversity is VL, the crossover rate is
greatly increased so as to enhance the information exchange be-
tween chromosomes for increasing the chance of finding more
good-quality solutions. The increase of the crossover rate can also
enhance the speed of population convergence in order to minimize
the overall running time for obtaining good-quality solutions.
However, the mutation rate should be greatly reduced in order
not to alter the search from a guided random one to a totally ran-
dom one which can reduce the quality of the solution of the whole
population. Once the rules in the upper left corner of the rule tables
are determined, other rules can be derived.

As mentioned in Section 4.2.2, there are no guidelines for the
design of IF-THEN rules. They are based on expert knowledge
and experience. For the 12 possible combination sets of rules for
output membership values of Dpc(t + 1) and Dpm(t + 1) as shown
in Table 5, set 1 is the most reasonable and the most appropriate
choice. In order to justify our choice of rules, simulations of FL-
NSGA2 were conducted. The parameters of FL-NSGA2 used in the
simulations were the same as those in Table 6. Simulation results
were obtained in terms of Deb and Jain convergence metric and
spread.
5.2. Performance comparison of FL-NSGA2, FL-SPEA2, FL-MICROGA,
NSGA2, SPEA2, and MICROGA by using the best set of fuzzy rules
In this section, the performance of FL-NSGA2 is compared with
that of NSGA2, SPEA2, FL-SPEA2, MICROGA, and FL-MICROGA via
10 various data sets of each of three different scenarios by using
the best set of fuzzy rules, i.e. rule set 1. The means of the Deb
and Jain convergence metric and spread for the 10 different data
sets of scenario (i) are tabulated in Tables 9 and 10, respectively.
The means for scenarios (ii) and (iii) are tabulated in
 H.C.W. Lau et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268 8265

Table 9
The means of the Deb and Jain convergence metric for the 10 different data sets of scenario (i).

Data set MOEA

FL-NSGA2 FL-SPEA2 FL-MICROGA NSGA2 SPEA2 MICROGA
1 0.196683 0.292871 0.383517 0.305051 0.376876 0.467892
2 0.156529 0.313081 0.397146 0.312698 0.389779 0.471635
3 0.294487 0.200027 0.356136 0.295715 0.374047 0.493641
4 0.198013 0.223194 0.326806 0.257646 0.384556 0.484082
5 0.174476 0.252522 0.340158 0.247591 0.381075 0.465493
6 0.212671 0.190036 0.385186 0.272385 0.323675 0.438083
7 0.189441 0.260784 0.355849 0.304489 0.341023 0.447371
8 0.205274 0.274502 0.337076 0.319111 0.362684 0.468438
9 0.178713 0.229875 0.345674 0.265009 0.344966 0.432859
10 0.175324 0.307939 0.376998 0.255754 0.372604 0.477493

Table 10
The means of the spread for the 10 different data sets of scenario (i).

Data set MOEA

FL-NSGA2 FL-SPEA2 FL-MICROGA NSGA2 SPEA2 MICROGA
1 0.619357 0.607883 0.801346 0.734779 0.817073 0.929029
2 0.581362 0.731056 0.885067 0.773156 0.787835 0.924711
3 0.564074 0.651357 0.783323 0.777783 0.813532 0.949629
4 0.618938 0.708098 0.841578 0.745006 0.795813 0.905246
5 0.685626 0.622486 0.814966 0.731452 0.824376 0.960814
6 0.595936 0.669155 0.799725 0.684651 0.779202 0.904081
7 0.571762 0.632919 0.837858 0.672687 0.804917 0.891314
8 0.613321 0.635973 0.876812 0.705559 0.788053 0.898741
9 0.575997 0.696285 0.842891 0.727876 0.798746 0.922045
10 0.592716 0.673986 0.836589 0.765511 0.808045 0.915937

Tables 11–14, respectively. In these tables, the best metric value
(i.e. the minimum value) of Deb and Jain convergence metric and
spread in each data set is highlighted in bold type.
The simulation results are summarized as follows:
1. Scenario (i): FL-NSGA2 found smaller values of Deb and Jain con-
vergence metric than did FL-SPEA2, FL-MICROGA, NSGA2,
SPEA2, and MICROGA for all data sets, except sets 3 and 6 as
shown in Table 9. In Table 10, FL-NSGA2 produced smaller val-
ues of spread than other MOEAs for all data sets, except sets 1
and 5.
2. Scenario (ii): FL-NSGA2 produced smaller values of Deb and Jain
convergence metric than others for all data sets, except sets 8
and 10 as shown in Table 11 and smaller values of spread for
all data sets, except set 7 as given in Table 12.
3. Scenario (iii): FL-NSGA2 produced smaller values of Deb and Jain
convergence metric than others for all data sets, except set 8 as
shown in Table 13 and smaller values of spread for all data sets
as given in Table 14.
Based on the above results, generally, FL-NSGA2 is able to pro-
duce non-dominated solution sets with better convergence and
diversity than other MOEAs. Nevertheless, in some data sets of
all scenarios, the performance of FL-NSGA2 is not the best because
it is a stochastic search technique which does not guarantee that it
must win all the time. In addition, it is observed that as the VRP be-
comes harder (i.e. the number of depots and customers increase),
the performance of FL-NSGA2 seems to be better (i.e. produces
smaller values of both two metrics for most of data sets in scenario
(iii)).
FL-NSGA2, FL-SPEA2, and FL-MICROGA produced better results
than the ones without the guide of fuzzy logic for all three scenar-
ios. The reason is that fuzzy logic can adjust the crossover rate and
the mutation rate to suitable values for various evolution states of
the population. Since crossover and mutation contribute to the
convergence and diversity of the population respectively, their
adjustable rates can balance the degree of convergence and diver-
sity of the population no matter what the current state of the pop-
ulation is. This can prevent premature convergence and over-
diversity from happening in any state of the population and there-
fore effectively improve the search performance of MOEAs.
The running times of these three scenarios are tabulated in
Tables 15–17. From these tables, it can be seen that the running
times of fuzzy logic guided MOEAs, i.e. FL-NSGA2, FL-SPEA2, and

Table 11
The means of the Deb and Jain convergence metric for the 10 different data sets of scenario (ii).

Data set MOEA

FL-NSGA2 FL-SPEA2 FL-MICROGA NSGA2 SPEA2 MICROGA
1 0.141359 0.198418 0.419938 0.277184 0.300506 0.486026
2 0.180874 0.264737 0.428004 0.297432 0.331592 0.469054
3 0.163584 0.259616 0.400388 0.314147 0.352385 0.459117
4 0.170928 0.224403 0.432453 0.308841 0.307212 0.433459
5 0.193287 0.278611 0.398476 0.281507 0.324716 0.417522
6 0.189655 0.200289 0.416207 0.268133 0.289395 0.475394
7 0.210682 0.260836 0.429297 0.286102 0.299677 0.459853
8 0.190352 0.176432 0.390243 0.297812 0.316145 0.418259
9 0.155247 0.251579 0.407096 0.303894 0.329719 0.434214
10 0.175071 0.150721 0.388092 0.269773 0.279703 0.445546
8266 H.C.W. Lau et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268

Table 12
The means of the spread for the 10 different data sets of scenario (ii).

Data set MOEA

FL-NSGA2 FL-SPEA2 FL-MICROGA NSGA2 SPEA2 MICROGA
1 0.507248 0.623402 0.804951 0.672453 0.759004 0.933241
2 0.544564 0.651256 0.823099 0.684286 0.709754 0.935377
3 0.598051 0.611429 0.897598 0.706146 0.738838 0.910648
4 0.606892 0.682658 0.889554 0.729287 0.759349 0.920603
5 0.588127 0.659407 0.808609 0.713157 0.734519 0.917604
6 0.627822 0.726568 0.834407 0.720695 0.787537 0.934457
7 0.607334 0.576662 0.810318 0.767202 0.747658 0.944633
8 0.636283 0.705356 0.836436 0.718192 0.786398 0.948122
9 0.620233 0.712577 0.823872 0.731931 0.779403 0.900517
10 0.591692 0.671406 0.821787 0.724339 0.740552 0.951231

Table 13
The means of the Deb and Jain convergence metric for the 10 different data sets of scenario (iii).

Data set MOEA

FL-NSGA2 FL-SPEA2 FL-MICROGA NSGA2 SPEA2 MICROGA
1 0.224818 0.292425 0.420103 0.286924 0.360073 0.429704
2 0.219144 0.312201 0.418949 0.278477 0.379603 0.433055
3 0.201005 0.336431 0.405847 0.303555 0.397902 0.417292
4 0.202847 0.285962 0.408151 0.297919 0.386447 0.436465
5 0.192692 0.326032 0.394576 0.327252 0.362569 0.415595
6 0.210245 0.328577 0.418967 0.310526 0.395334 0.435548
7 0.187819 0.288533 0.399032 0.321842 0.380624 0.455898
8 0.298459 0.217899 0.388631 0.280262 0.357169 0.411089
9 0.215068 0.301188 0.390547 0.300867 0.363146 0.426081
10 0.194081 0.311617 0.402156 0.323826 0.352239 0.438119

Table 14
The means of the spread for the 10 different data sets of scenario (iii).

Data set MOEA

FL-NSGA2 FL-SPEA2 FL-MICROGA NSGA2 SPEA2 MICROGA
1 0.689149 0.757277 0.889478 0.730878 0.795418 0.972976
2 0.642217 0.769259 0.852682 0.701979 0.773359 0.919828
3 0.660085 0.734931 0.840495 0.766924 0.810252 0.939625
4 0.673894 0.752793 0.873918 0.749796 0.809514 0.930174
5 0.635026 0.721771 0.902381 0.729587 0.737383 0.927133
6 0.682675 0.731789 0.867846 0.733985 0.784136 0.907561
7 0.670763 0.753923 0.835327 0.750955 0.806202 0.931394
8 0.700026 0.720858 0.882637 0.715113 0.726711 0.921726
9 0.649953 0.765725 0.868399 0.767648 0.821048 0.899901
10 0.697581 0.746789 0.844859 0.746132 0.788526 0.900123

Table 15
The running times of 10 different data sets of scenario (i).

Data set MOEA (s)

FL-NSGA2 FL-SPEA2 FL-MICROGA NSGA2 SPEA2 MICROGA
1 1833 2096 1994 1703 1998 1920
2 1904 2072 1936 1849 1909 1900
3 1919 1973 1998 1726 1945 1882
4 1871 2048 2009 1819 2001 1843
5 1923 2081 1988 1865 1985 1931
6 1915 2016 1974 1787 2006 1879
7 1928 2031 2007 1710 1976 1942
8 1810 1985 1965 1754 1953 1888
9 1896 2056 2027 1793 1994 1879
10 1861 1998 2015 1898 2013 1942
 H.C.W. Lau et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268 8267

Table 16
The running times of 10 different data sets of scenario (ii).

Data set MOEA (s)

FL-NSGA2 FL-SPEA2 FL-MICROGA NSGA2 SPEA2 MICROGA
1 2652 2874 2781 2596 2773 2738
2 2682 2868 2828 2627 2791 2774
3 2704 2875 2806 2570 2712 2686
4 2710 2901 2814 2583 2768 2745
5 2668 2913 2793 2601 2801 2787
6 2715 2847 2771 2578 2813 2690
7 2673 2880 2827 2605 2798 2763
8 2691 2871 2799 2622 2774 2769
9 2642 2926 2832 2584 2806 2744
10 2709 2887 2822 2589 2785 2753

Table 17
The running times of 10 different data sets of scenario (iii).

Data set MOEA (s)

FL-NSGA2 FL-SPEA2 FL-MICROGA NSGA2 SPEA2 MICROGA
1 3391 3528 3424 3250 3444 3346
2 3406 3539 3392 3275 3406 3373
3 3417 3492 3400 3239 3419 3315
4 3398 3484 3416 3276 3395 3334
5 3420 3526 3383 3251 3421 3370
6 3386 3511 3389 3264 3429 3351
7 3393 3497 3431 3303 3437 3317
8 3408 3503 3429 3295 3426 3349
9 3385 3518 3396 3282 3396 3362
10 3399 3485 3415 3308 3410 3375

Variation of crossover rate Variation of mutation rate

1 0.06

0.9 0.05
Crossover rate

Mutation rate

0.8 0.04

0.7 0.03

0.6 0.02
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 100011001200130014001500 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500
Generation number Generation number

Fig. 10. Plot of crossover rate against generation number for a simulation run of FL- Fig. 11. Plot of mutation rate against generation number for a simulation run of FL-
NSGA2. NSGA2.

FL-MICROGA, are greater than those without the guide of fuzzy lo-
gic. Obviously, the reason is that extra computational load is
needed for the guide of fuzzy logic. However, from the authors’
point of view, the magnitude increase of running times is not huge
and therefore it is worthwhile to implement those guided MOEAs
in order to improve the search performance.
5.3. Variation of crossover and mutation rates throughout a simulation
run of FL-NSGA2
The values of crossover and mutation rates can be different in
each ten consecutive generations. In order to realize how these
two rates change in a simulation run of FL-NSGA2 in a selected sce-
nario (ii), their values are recorded in each 100 generations and
plotted in Figs. 10 and 11, respectively. From these figures, it can
be observed that the crossover rate varies between 0.7 and 0.94
and the mutation rate changes between 0.026 and 0.05.
From 0th generation to 600th generation, the average fitness of
the population decreases and the population diversity is large.
Thus, the crossover rate increases from 0.7 and the mutation rate
decreases from 0.05. From 600th generation to 1000th generation,
the fluctuation of the average fitness of the population and that of
the population diversity results in the increase or decrease of the
crossover rate and mutation rate. From 1000th generation to
1500th generation, the state of the search becomes steady. Thus,
the magnitude of the increase and decrease of the two rates is
much less than that between 600th generation and 1000th
generation.
6. Conclusions
Multi-objective vehicle routing problem with multiple depots,
multiple customers, and multiple products has been studied. The
objective has been to simultaneously minimize both the total
8268 H.C.W. Lau et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 8255–8268
traveling distance and the total traveling time. A MOEA called FL-
NSGA2 was proposed to solve this multi-objective optimization
problem. The role of fuzzy logic is to dynamically adjust the cross-
over rate and mutation rate after ten consecutive generations. Also,
other MOEAs, i.e. NSGA2, SPEA2, FL-SPEA2, MICROGA, and FL-MIC-
ROGA, were adopted to compare their performance with that of FL-
NSGA2. Three different scenarios were considered in the simula-
tions. Results showed that FL-NSGA2 outperformed others in all
three scenarios.
Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank the Research Office of the Hong Kong
Polytechnic University for the support of this project.
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