The (not so) Trivial Lifting in Two Dimensions

When generating cutting-planes for mixed-integer programs from multiple rows of the simplex tableau, the usual approach has been to relax the integrality of the non-basic variables, compute an intersection cut, then strengthen the cut coefficients corresponding to integral non-basic variables using the so-called trivial lifting procedure. Although of polynomial-time complexity in theory, this lifting procedure … Read more

Intersection Cuts for Single Row Corner Relaxations

We consider the problem of generating inequalities that are valid for one-row relaxations of a simplex tableau, with the integrality constraints preserved for one or more non-basic variables. These relaxations are interesting because they can be used to generate cutting planes for general mixed-integer problems. We first consider the case of a single non-basic integer … Read more

Numerically safe lower bounds for the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem

The resolution of integer programming problems is typically performed via branch-and-bound. Nodes of the branch-and-bound tree are pruned whenever the corresponding subproblem is proven not to contain a solution better than the best solution found so far. This is a key ingredient for achieving reasonable solution times. However, since subproblems are solved in floating-point arithmetic, … Read more

Exact Algorithms for the Chance-Constrained Vehicle Routing Problem

We study the chance-constrained vehicle routing problem (CCVRP), a version of the vehicle routing problem (VRP) with stochastic demands, where a limit is imposed on the probability that each vehicle’s capacity is exceeded. A distinguishing feature of our proposed methodologies is that they allow correlation between random demands, whereas nearly all existing exact methods for … Read more

A joint routing and speed optimization problem

Fuel cost contributes to a significant portion of operating cost in cargo transportation. Though classic routing models usually treat fuel cost as input data, fuel consumption heavily depends on the travel speed, which has led to the study of optimizing speeds over a given fixed route. In this paper, we propose a joint routing and … Read more

A disjunctive convex programming approach to the pollution routing problem

The pollution routing problem (PRP) aims to determine a set of routes and speed over each leg of the routes simultaneously to minimize the total operational and environmental costs. A common approach to solve the PRP exactly is through speed discretization, i.e., assuming that speed over each arc is chosen from a prescribed set of … Read more

A branch-cut-and-price algorithm for the energy minimization vehicle routing problem

We study a variant of the capacitated vehicle routing problem where the cost over each arc is defined as the product of the arc length and the weight of the vehicle when it traverses that arc. We propose two new mixed integer linear programming formulations for the problem: an arc-load formulation and a set partitioning … Read more

The Time Dependent Traveling Salesman Problem: Polyhedra and Algorithm

The Time Dependent Traveling Salesman Problem (TDTSP) is a generalization of the classical Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), where arc costs depend on their position in the tour with respect to the source node. While TSP instances with thousands of vertices can be solved routinely, there are very challenging TDTSP instances with less than 100 vertices. … Read more

Strengthening lattice-free cuts using non-negativity

In recent years there has been growing interest in generating valid inequalities for mixed-integer programs using sets with 2 or more constraints. In particular, Andersen et.al (2007) and Borozan and Cornue’jols (2007) study sets defined by equations that contain exactly one integer variable per row. The integer variables are not restricted in sign. Cutting planes … Read more

The master equality polyhedron with multiple rows

The master equality polyhedron (MEP) is a canonical set that generalizes the Master Cyclic Group Polyhedron (MCGP) of Gomory. We recently characterized a nontrivial polar for the MEP, i.e., a polyhedron T such that an inequality denotes a nontrivial facet of the MEP if and only if its coefficient vector forms a vertex of T. … Read more