Energy-Efficient Timetabling in a German Underground System

Timetabling of railway traffic and other modes of transport is among the most prominent applications of discrete optimization in practice. However, it has only been recently that the connection between timetabling and energy consumption has been studied more extensively. In our joint project VAG Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft, the transit authority and operator of underground transport in the … Read more

New subspace minimization conjugate gradient methods based on regularization model for unconstrained optimization

In this paper, two new subspace minimization conjugate gradient methods based on p-regularization models are proposed, where a special scaled norm in p-regularization model is analyzed. Diffierent choices for special scaled norm lead to different solutions to the p-regularized subproblem. Based on the analyses of the solutions in a two-dimensional subspace, we derive new directions … Read more

A Model of Supply-Chain Decisions for Resource Sharing with an Application to Ventilator Allocation to Combat COVID-19

We present a stochastic optimization model for allocating and sharing a critical resource in the case of a pandemic. The demand for different entities peaks at different times, and an initial inventory for a central agency is to be allocated. The entities (states) may share the critical resource with a different state under a risk-averse … Read more

An Exact Solution Method for the TSP with Drone Based on Decomposition

The Traveling Salesperson Problem with Drone (TSP–D) is a routing model in which a given set of customer locations must be visited in the least amount of time, either by a truck route starting and ending at a depot or by a drone dispatched from the truck en route. We study the TSP–D model and … Read more

The Nurse Rostering Problem in COVID-19 emergency scenario

Healthcare facilities are struggling in fighting the spread of COVID-19. While machines needed for patients such as ventilators can be built or bought, healthcare personnel is a very scarce resource that cannot be increased by hospitals in a short period. Furthermore, healthcare personnel is getting sick while taking care of infected people, increasing this shortage … Read more

A Branch-and-Price Algorithm for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Stochastic Demands and Probabilistic Duration Constraints

In many routing applications, it is necessary to place limits on the duration of the individual routes. When demands are stochastic and restocking during route execution is allowed, the durations of the resulting routes are also stochastic. In this paper, we consider the vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands and (probabilistic) duration constraints (VRPSD-DC). We … Read more

Distributionally Robust Optimization under Distorted Expectations

Distributionally robust optimization (DRO) has arose as an important paradigm to address the issue of distributional ambiguity in decision optimization. In its standard form, DRO seeks an optimal solution against the worst-possible expected value evaluated based on a set of candidate distributions. In the case where a decision maker is not risk neutral, the most … Read more

A K-Nearest Neighbor Heuristic for Real-Time DC Optimal Transmission Switching

While transmission switching is known to reduce power generation costs, the difficulty of solving even DC optimal transmission switching (DCOTS) has prevented optimal transmission switching from becoming commonplace in real-time power systems operation. In this paper, we present a k-nearest neighbors (KNN) heuristic for DCOTS which relies on the insight that, for routine operations on … Read more

Stability in the the Hospitals / Residents problem with Couples and Ties: Mathematical models and computational studies

In the well-known Hospitals/Residents problem (HR), the objective is to find a stable matching of doctors (or residents) to hospitals based on their preference lists. In this paper, we study HRCT, the extension of HR in which doctors are allowed to apply in couples, and in which doctors and hospitals can include ties in their … Read more

Optimizing the Response for Arctic Mass Rescue Events

We study a model that optimizes the response to a mass rescue event in Arctic Alaska. The model contains dynamic logistics decisions for a large-scale maritime evacuation with the objectives of minimizing the impact of the event on the evacuees and the average evacuation time. Our proposed optimization model considers two interacting networks – the … Read more