A Genetic Algorithm for the Home-Delivered Meals Location-Routing Problem

Home-delivered meals (HDM) provision is a volunteer-staffed activity for which little strategic planning is currently performed. We present and evaluate a Genetic Algorithm to solve the HDM location- routing problem (LRP). This planning model addresses facility location, allocation of demand to facilities, and design of delivery routes, while balancing effciency and effectiveness considerations. We provide compu- tational results on benchmark LRP instances.