Abstract: To reduce the transportation cost in the VRP (Vehicle Routing Problem) of milk-run, a discrete seagull algorithm is proposed. Firstly, in the process of seagull migration, insert and reverse operations are used to update the seagull position to improve the algorithm's search speed. Secondly, swap and 3-opt operations are used to update the seagull position to improve the algorithm's local search capability. Finally, combined with simulated annealing algorithm, the phenomenon of landing on local optimum is prevented during the operation of the algorithm, the update strategy is redefined under the discrete vehicle routing problem. With the lowest total cost as the objective function, the corresponding mathematical model is constructed. Experiment results show that the algorithm is able to efficaciously deal with the vehicle routing problem of milk-run, the finding effect and solution quality are better than the standard seagull optimization algorithm, particle swarm algorithm, simulated annealing, gray wolf optimization, whale optimization algorithm, and moth-flame optimization.

Key words: discrete seagull algorithm; , milk-run; , vehicle routing problem; , optimization algorithm