The vehicle routing problem (VRP) seeks to service customers with a fleet of vehicles in a way that minimizes costs, such as total distance traveled. Proposed in 1959, VRP involves delivering goods from a central depot to customers and is an important problem in transportation, distribution, and logistics. The objective is to find the lowest cost routes for a set of vehicles to visit all customer locations.

1. HYPOTHESIS OR CLAIM

2. Definition
WHAT
IS
THE
vehicle
routing
problem
(VRP)?
The vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a combinatorial
optimization and integer programming problem seeking to
service a number of customers with a fleet of
vehicles. Proposed by Dantzig and Ramser in 1959,VRP is
an important problem in the fields of transportation,
distribution and logistics. Often the context is that of delivering
goods located at a central depot to customers who have
placed orders for such goods. The objective of the VRP is to
minimize the total route cost.

3. Hypothesis or claim
Vehicle routing problems are basically
concerned with finding a way to visit a
given set of customer locations using a
given set of vehicles in such a way that
a cost function, often the total distance,
is minimized. The solution technique for
solving vehicle routing problem is a
savings algorithm.