• V.Bugcy Mettilda
• D. Saravanan

Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) plays an important role in logistics management and has been broadly used as a partof Transportation Framework, Logistics Distribution Frameworkand Faster Delivery System. In this paper, we have conducted a literature review on the recent developments and publications involving the Vehicle Routing Problem and its variants, namely Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW) and the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) and also their variants. The VRP is classified as an NP-hard problem. Hence, the use of exact optimization methods may be difficult to solve these problems in acceptable CPU times, when the problem involves real-world data sets that are very large. The vehicle routing problem comes under combinatorial problem. Hence, to get solutions in determining routes which are realistic and very close to the optimal solution, we use heuristics and meta-heuristics. We discuss the characteristics and classification of VRP, the constraints in VRP Solutions and future of VRP solutions in coming years.We also discuss the various VRP Solutions using Bio-inspired algorithms like Ant Colony Optimization(ACO), Artificial Bee Colony (ABC), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Genetic Algorithm (GA). VRP is viewed as a smart vehicle routing problem and the intelligent heuristic algorithm will be a critical field of futureresearch

Vehicle Routing Problem, Exact Methods, Heuristics, Meta-Heuristics, VRPTW,Bio-inspired algorithms, Ant Colony Optimization, Genetic Algorithms

"A Survey on the Vehicle Routing Problem and Its Variants", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 2, page no.699-709, February-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1902599.pdf

"A Survey on the Vehicle Routing Problem and Its Variants", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 2, page no. pp699-709, February-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1902599.pdf