Applications – OR and Management Sciences

On the Single-Multi-Commodity Gap: Lifting Single- to Multicommodity Flow Instances

  • Felix P. Broesamle
  • Stefan Nickel
    • Categories Applications - OR and Management Sciences, Linear Programming, Network Optimization Tags , , , , ,

    Benchmark instances for multicommodity flow problems frequently lack the structural nuances of real-world networks or fail to maintain a rigorous mathematical relationship with their single-commodity counterparts. This paper introduces a formal meta-generation framework that addresses these limitations by lifting single-commodity minimum-cost flow instances into the multicommodity space while strictly preserving the underlying network topology, capacity … Read more

    On vehicle routing problems with stochastic demands — Scenario-optimal recourse policies

  • Matheus Jun Ota
  • Ricardo Fukasawa
    • Categories Branch and Cut Algorithms, Stochastic Programming, Transportation Tags , ,

    Two-Stage Vehicle Routing Problems with Stochastic Demands (VRPSDs) form a class of stochastic combinatorial optimization problems where routes are planned in advance, demands are revealed upon vehicle arrival, and recourse actions are triggered whenever capacity is exceeded. Following recent works, we consider VRPSDs where demands are given by an empirical probability distribution of scenarios. Existing … Read more

    Time-of-Use Pump Scheduling for Flow Transmission

  • Yuzhen Feng
    • Categories Energy, Scheduling

    We study time-of-use pump scheduling to deliver a required volume using a finite set of pump combinations with empirical flow–power performance, subject to per-shift caps on pump switches. We prove a structural theorem: partitioning the horizon into maximal intervals with constant tariff and shift (atoms), there always exists an optimal schedule with at most one … Read more

    A Newsvendor Model for Last-Mile Fleet Sizing

  • Benjamin Rojas
  • Homero Larrain
  • Mathias A. Klapp
  • Dipayan Banerjee
    • Categories Applications - OR and Management Sciences, Production and Logistics, Transportation Tags , , ,

    We study the tactical problem of determining a last-mile delivery fleet size while accounting for day-to-day uncertainty in the number and location of customer requests. An optimally sized fleet must balance the cost of contracting vehicles against the penalty costs of unserved customers: a larger fleet reduces the risk of unserved demand, but a smaller … Read more

    Finding Minimal Discretizations in Dynamic Discretization Discovery for Continuous-Time Service Network Design

  • Tom Wüllner
  • Alexander Helber
    • Categories Combinatorial Optimization, Network Optimization, Transportation Tags , , ,

    The dynamic discretization discovery framework is a powerful tool for solving network design problems with a temporal component by iteratively refining a time-discretized model. Existing approaches refine the time discretization in ways that guarantee eventual termination. However, refinement choices are not unique, and better choices can yield smaller and easier-to-solve time-discretized models. We pose the … Read more

    Fair Vehicle Routing via Bilevel Optimization

  • Ivana Ljubić
  • Justo Puerto
  • Alberto Torrejon
    • Categories Bilevel Optimization, Transportation Tags , ,

    We propose a novel approach to modeling fairness in the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) by introducing objective functions based on ordering route lengths, capturing both monotonic and non-monotonic equity measures. Our method ensures allocations that are efficient, capacity-feasible, and equitable according to criteria like min-max, range, Gini, variance, or absolute deviations. To prevent biased or … Read more

    Risk-Averse Stochastic User Equilibrium on Uncertain Transportation Networks

  • Wencheng Bao
  • Chrysafis Vogiatzis
  • Eleftheria Kontou
    • Categories Network Optimization, Robust Optimization, Transportation Tags , , , , ,

    Extreme weather events, like flooding, disrupt urban transportation networks by reducing speeds and capacities, and by closing roadways. These hazards create regime-dependent uncertainty in link performance and travel-time distribution tails, challenging conventional traffic assignment that relies on the expectation of cost or mean excess of cost summation. This study develops a risk- and ambiguity-aware traffic … Read more

    Dynamic and Robust Allocation of On-Street Parking for Passenger and Delivery Vehicles

  • Alp Darendeliler
  • Barış Yıldız
    • Categories Dynamic Programming, Robust Optimization, Transportation Tags , , , ,

    Problem definition: Curb space has long been a scarce public resource in automobilized cities, serving competing uses for passenger parking and commercial activities. The rapid growth of e-commerce and home deliveries, combined with increasing urban density, has further intensified pressure on this already constrained resource, making effective curbspace management a critical policy challenge. Yet, in … Read more