Improved Multi-Agent System for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

The vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) involves assigning a fleet of limited capacity vehicles to serve a set of customers without violating the capacity and time constraints. This paper presents a multi-agent model system for the VRPTW based on the internal behavior of agents and coordination among the agents. The system presents a formal view of coordination using the traditional contract-net protocol (CNP) that relies on the basic loop of agent behavior for order receiving, order announcem...