Tabu-based GIS for solving the vehicle routing problem

•An integrated sytem that merges optimzation rules and a geographical information system.•A real case study applied on the area of Tunisia shows the performance of the platform.•A tabu search approach applied on benchmark instances highlights the out performance of its results.•A comparative study with state of the art tabu search metaheuristics is driven.

Besides being a hard combinatorial problem, the VRP is also a spatial problem. Hence, effective decision making in this field strongly requires the integration of GIS and optimization systems (GIS-O). This article integrates GIS and optimization tools for solving the vehicle routing problem with loading and distance requirements (DCVRP). A general outline of the multi-step integration is pointed out showing the interaction of the GIS and the spatial optimization according to the loose coupling strategy. The computational performance of the TS-VRP algorithm for the DCVRP turned out to be quite efficient on both computation time and solution quality. The Tunisian case study well illustrates the incentive behind using such a spatial decision support system that allows the management of the problem from the data acquisition to the visualization of possible simulation scenarios in a more realistic way.