A dynamic capacitated arc routing problem with time-dependent service costs

This paper describes a dynamic capacitated arc routing problem motivated from winter gritting applications. In this problem, the service cost on each arc is a piecewise linear function of the time of beginning of service. This function also exhibits an optimal time interval where the service cost is minimal. Since the timing of an intervention is crucial, the dynamic aspect considered in this work stems from changes to these optimal service time intervals due to weather report updates. A variable neighborhood descent heuristic, initially developed for the static version of the problem, where all service cost functions are known in advance and do not change thereafter, is adapted to this dynamic variant.