In this paper, an adaptive algorithm to solve the Periodic Vehicle Routing Problem (PVRP) is studied. The objective of the PVRP is the elaboration of a set of routes to fulfil the needs of a customer demand for a given planning horizon. Each customer requests that the visits occur in a predefined combination of days. The proposed approach uses an initial heuristic of construction to attribute each customer to the necessary days. After that, visiting day combinations are interchanged with the aim of improving the solution. The search process is controlled by an adaptive algorithm that uses a process of intensification and diversification for each day during the period. The HTA algorithm is used to construct the routes. Computational tests involving ten problems were executed and the results were compared with five PVRP heuristics.

tabu search, metaheuristics, routing, HTA, PVRP.