An efficient implementation of a static move descriptor-based local search heuristic

The Vehicle Routing Problem is a well-studied problem. Since its formulation in 1959, a great number of powerful solution methods have been designed. However, for large scale problems, few techniques are able to consistently find good solutions within an acceptable time limit. In this paper, the concept of Static Move Descriptors, a recently published technique for speeding up Local Search algorithms, is analyzed and an efficient implementation is suggested. We describe several changes that significantly improve the performance of an SMD-based Local Search algorithm. The result is an efficient and flexible technique that can easily be adapted to different metaheuristics and can be combined with other complexity reduction strategies.