Solving the shortest route cut and fill problem using simulated annealing

This paper introduces the shortest route cut and fill problem (SRCFP). The SRCFP is a NP-hard discrete optimization problem for leveling a construction project site, where the objective is to find a vehicle route that minimizes the total distance traveled by a single earthmoving vehicle between cut and fill locations. An optimal vehicle route is a route that minimizes the total haul distance that a single earthmoving vehicle travels. Simulated annealing algorithms are formulated to address the SRCFP. To assess the effectiveness of simulated annealing on the SRCFP, a greedy algorithm is constructed to compute an upper bound and the Held-Karp 1-tree lower bound is used to compute a lower bound. Extensive computational results are reported using several randomly generated instances of the SRCFP.