Solving the Periodic Petrol Station Replenishment Problem Using Heuristics and Metaheuristic Approaches

The Petrol Station Replenishment Problem (PSRP) is well recognized in the Operations Research literature. The desired objective is usually defined as the minimization of the traveled distance by the trucks to serve all the stations. In the literature, this problem is usually addressed over a time period of one single day ignoring the fact that solving the PSRP over a T-day planning horizon may yield delivery savings for the company. Therefore, the aim of this research work is to introduce the Periodic Petrol Station Replenishment Problem (PPSRP) over a T-day planning horizon. Then, develop heuristics and/or metaheuristic algorithms to solving it. After that, the proposed algorithms will be tested and compared on instances of real-life test problems taken from local fuel distributers companies whom are still using a human-based planning solutions.