An Agentic Framework with LLMs for Solving Complex Vehicle Routing Problems

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Ni, Cao, Zhiguang, Zhou, Jianan, Zhang, Cong, Ong, Yew-Soon
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zhang, Ni
Cao, Zhiguang
Zhou, Jianan
Zhang, Cong
Ong, Yew-Soon
author_facet Zhang, Ni
Cao, Zhiguang
Zhou, Jianan
Zhang, Cong
Ong, Yew-Soon
contents Complex vehicle routing problems (VRPs) remain a fundamental challenge, demanding substantial expert effort for intent interpretation and algorithm design. While large language models (LLMs) offer a promising path toward automation, current approaches still rely on external intervention, which restrict autonomy and often lead to execution errors and low solution feasibility. To address these challenges, we propose an Agentic Framework with LLMs (AFL) for solving complex vehicle routing problems, achieving full automation from problem instance to solution. AFL directly extracts knowledge from raw inputs and enables self-contained code generation without handcrafted modules or external solvers. To improve trustworthiness, AFL decomposes the overall pipeline into three manageable subtasks and employs four specialized agents whose coordinated interactions enforce cross-functional consistency and logical soundness. Extensive experiments on 60 complex VRPs, ranging from standard benchmarks to practical variants, validate the effectiveness and generality of our framework, showing comparable performance against meticulously designed algorithms. Notably, it substantially outperforms existing LLM-based baselines in both code reliability and solution feasibility, achieving rates close to 100% on the evaluated benchmarks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_16701
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An Agentic Framework with LLMs for Solving Complex Vehicle Routing Problems
Zhang, Ni
Cao, Zhiguang
Zhou, Jianan
Zhang, Cong
Ong, Yew-Soon
Artificial Intelligence
Complex vehicle routing problems (VRPs) remain a fundamental challenge, demanding substantial expert effort for intent interpretation and algorithm design. While large language models (LLMs) offer a promising path toward automation, current approaches still rely on external intervention, which restrict autonomy and often lead to execution errors and low solution feasibility. To address these challenges, we propose an Agentic Framework with LLMs (AFL) for solving complex vehicle routing problems, achieving full automation from problem instance to solution. AFL directly extracts knowledge from raw inputs and enables self-contained code generation without handcrafted modules or external solvers. To improve trustworthiness, AFL decomposes the overall pipeline into three manageable subtasks and employs four specialized agents whose coordinated interactions enforce cross-functional consistency and logical soundness. Extensive experiments on 60 complex VRPs, ranging from standard benchmarks to practical variants, validate the effectiveness and generality of our framework, showing comparable performance against meticulously designed algorithms. Notably, it substantially outperforms existing LLM-based baselines in both code reliability and solution feasibility, achieving rates close to 100% on the evaluated benchmarks.
title An Agentic Framework with LLMs for Solving Complex Vehicle Routing Problems
topic Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.16701