The Value of Randomized Strategies in Distributionally Robust Risk Averse Network Interdiction Games

Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) is widely used to account for the preferences of a risk-averse agent in the extreme loss scenarios. To study the effectiveness of randomization in interdiction games with an interdictor that is both risk and ambiguity averse, we introduce a distributionally robust network interdiction game where the interdictor randomizes over the … Read more

Practical Risk Modeling for the Stochastic Technician Routing and Scheduling Problem

Planning for uncertainty is crucial for finding good, stable solutions. However, it is often impractical to incorporate stochastic elements into a large production system. Our paper tackles this issue in the context of the Technician Routing and Scheduling Problem (TRSP). We develop a set of techniques, based on phase-type distributions, to quickly and accurately evaluate … Read more

Service Network Design for Same-Day Delivery with Hub Capacity Constraints

We study a new service network design problem for an urban same-day delivery system in which the number of vehicles that can simultaneously load or unload at a hub is limited. Due to the presence of both time constraints for the commodities and capacity constraints at the hubs, it is no longer guaranteed that a … Read more

The two-echelon location-routing problem with time windows: Formulation, branch-and-price, and clustering

In this study, we consider the two-echelon location-routing problem with time windows (2E-LRPTW) to address the strategic and tactical decisions of the urban freight transportation. In the rst echelon, freights are delivered from city distribution centers (CDCs) to intermediate facilities, called satellites, in large batches. In the second echelon, goods are consolidated into smaller vehicles … Read more

Exact and Heuristic Algorithms for the Carrier-Vehicle Traveling Salesman Problem

This paper presents new structural properties for the Carrier-Vehicle Traveling Salesman Problem. The authors provide a new mixed integer second order conic optimization formulation, with associated optimality cuts based on the structural properties, and an Iterated Local Search (ILS) algorithm. Computational experiments on instances from the literature demonstrate the superiority of the new formulation to … Read more

Robust Active Preference Elicitation

We study the problem of strategically eliciting the preferences of a decision-maker through a moderate number of pairwise comparison queries with the goal of making them a high quality recommendation for a specific decision-making problem. We are particularly motivated by applications in high stakes domains, such as when choosing a policy for allocating scarce resources … Read more

Optimization-Based Dispatching Policies for Open-Pit Mining

We propose, implement, and test two approaches for dispatching trucks in an open-pit mining operation. The first approach relies on a nonlinear optimization model that incorporates queueing effects to set target average flow rates between mine locations. The second approach is based on a time-discretized mixed integer programming (MIP) model. The MIP model is difficult … Read more

A Robust Rolling Horizon Framework for Empty Repositioning

Naturally imbalanced freight flows force consolidation carriers to reposition resources empty. When constructing empty repositioning plans, the cost of repositioning resources empty needs to be weighed against the cost of corrective actions in case of unavailable resources. This is especially challenging given the uncertainty of future demand. We design and implement a robust rolling horizon … Read more

Integrated Pricing and Routing on a Network

We consider an integrated pricing and routing problem on a network. The problem is motivated by applications in freight transportation such as package delivery and less-than-truckload shipping services. The decision maker sets a price for each origin-destination pair of the network, which determines the demand flow that needs to be served. The flows are then … Read more

Optimal Residential Users Coordination Via Demand Response: An Exact Distributed Framework

This paper proposes a two-phase optimization framework for users that are involved in demand response (DR) programs. In a first phase, responsive users optimize their own household consumption, characterizing not only their appliances and equipments but also their comfort preferences. Subsequently, the aggregator exploits in a second phase this preliminary non-coordinated solution by implementing a … Read more