arXiv AI

Instance-Conditioned Adaptation for Large-scale Generalization of Neural Routing Solver

arXiv:2405. 01906v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: In modern intelligent transportation systems (ITS), particularly in freight transportation and logistics, real-time route planning is crucial.

arXiv AI
Jun 3

ASAP: Exploiting the Satisficing Generalization Edge in Neural Combinatorial Optimization

arXiv:2501. 17377v4 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) has emerged as a promising approach for solving Combinatorial Optimization (CO) problems, such as the 3D Bin Packing Problem (3D-BPP), Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), or Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP), but these neural solvers often exhibit brittleness when facing distribution shifts.

By Han Fang, Paul Weng, Yutong Ban
arXiv AI
Aug 25

Memory-Enhanced Neural Solvers for Routing Problems

The paper introduces MEMENTO, a memory‑enhanced neural solver that improves routing problem solutions by using online data from repeated attempts to adjust action distributions during inference. It targets NP‑hard routing tasks such as the Traveling Salesman and Capacitated Vehicle Routing problems, outperforming existing tree‑search and policy‑gradient fine‑tuning methods. MEMENTO demonstrates strong scalability and data efficiency, achieving state‑of‑the‑art results on 11 of 12 evaluated tasks and enabling zero‑shot integration with diversity‑based solvers.

By Felix Chalumeau, Refiloe Shabe, Noah De Nicola, Arnu Pretorius, Thomas D. Barrett, Nathan Grinsztajn
arXiv AI
Aug 28

SynthCharge: An Electric Vehicle Routing Instance Generator with Feasibility Screening to Enable Learning-Based Optimization and Benchmarking

SynthCharge is a parametric generator that creates diverse, feasibility‑screened instances of the electric vehicle routing problem with time windows (EVRPTW). It produces instances ranging from 5 to 100 customers (up to 500 in theory) with adaptive energy capacity scaling and range‑aware charging station placement, filtering out unsolvable cases via a fast feasibility screening process. This dynamic benchmarking infrastructure enables systematic evaluation of learning‑based routing and data‑driven approaches.

By Mertcan Daysalilar, Fuat Uyguroglu, Gabriel Nicolosi, Adam Meyers
arXiv AI
Sep 18

Customizable and Jointly Optimized Route Planning: A Deep Architecture Enabling Differentiable Shortest-Path Search

The paper introduces a deep architecture that jointly optimizes cost functions and a route-ranking model to accommodate diverse user preferences in route planning. It first generates a complete set of Pareto‑optimal routes using a multi‑objective Dijkstra algorithm, then employs a neural network that emulates shortest‑path search and ranking in an end‑to‑end differentiable framework. A novel loss function treats route preference as a constrained optimization problem, allowing a single objective to be optimized while other attributes remain constrained, and experiments on real‑world data show significant improvements over existing methods.

By Rui Zhao, Chao Chen, Longfei Xu, Chenguang Ji, Hengbin Cui, Kaikui Liu, Xiaolong Li
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 5

Beyond Solving: Prescriptive Probing for Neural Routing Solvers

arXiv:2602. 07216v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Neural combinatorial optimization (NCO) trains fast heuristics for routing problems, but planners often need more than a single solve: they ask which stop to drop, which transition to preserve, or which subset of stops to remove if a route is infeasible.

By Reuben Narad, L\'eonard Boussioux, Michael Wagner
arXiv AI
Jul 21

A Deep Reinforcement Learning Algorithm for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Stochastic Demands and Outsourcing

arXiv:2607. 16875v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We introduce the vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands and outsourcing options (VRP-SDO), in which a logistics service provider partitions customer requests into customers outsourced to a common carrier and customers committed to its fixed fleet.

By Mohsen Dastpak, Fausto Errico, Ola Jabali