A tailored Benders decomposition approach for last-mile delivery with autonomous robots

This work addresses an operational problem of a logistics service provider that consists of finding an optimal route for a vehicle carrying customer parcels from a central depot to selected facilities, from where autonomous devices like robots are launched to perform last-mile deliveries. The objective is to minimize a tardiness indicator based on the customer … Read more

An exact price-cut-and-enumerate method for the capacitated multi-trip vehicle routing problem with time windows

We consider the capacitated multi-trip vehicle routing problem with time windows (CMTVRPTW), where vehicles are allowed to make multiple trips. The ability to perform multiple trips is necessary for some real-world applications where the vehicle capacity, the trip duration, or the number of drivers or vehicles is limited. However, it substantially increases the solution difficulty … Read more

A data-driven, variable-speed model for the train timetable rescheduling problem

Train timetable rescheduling — the practice of changing the routes and timings of trains in real-time to respond to delays — can help to reduce the impact of reactionary delay. There are a number of existing optimisation models that can be used to determine the best way to reschedule the timetable in any given traffic … Read more

Vessel Deployment with Limited Information: Distributionally Robust Chance Constrained Models

This paper studies the fundamental vessel deployment problem in the liner shipping industry, which decides the numbers of mixed-type ships and their sailing frequencies on fixed routes to provide sufficient vessel capacity for fulfilling stochastic shipping demands with high probability. In reality, it is usually difficult (if not impossible) to acquire a precise joint distribution … Read more

Multi-period Workload Balancing in Last-Mile Urban Delivery

In the daily dispatching of urban deliveries, a delivery manager has to consider workload balance among the couriers to maintain workforce morale. We consider two types of workload: incentive workload, which relates to the delivery quantity and affects a courier’s income, and effort workload, which relates to the delivery time and affects a courier’s health. … Read more

Fleet Sizing and Service Region Partitioning for Same-Day Delivery Systems

We study the linked tactical design problems of fleet sizing and partitioning a service region into vehicle routing zones for same-day delivery (SDD) systems. Existing SDD studies focus primarily on operational dispatch problems and do not consider system design questions. Prior work on SDD system design has not considered the fleet sizing decision when a … Read more

Commodity Prioritized Maximum Dynamic Multi-Commodity Flow Problem

Due to different disasters, natural or men made, world is facing the problem of massive damage of life and property. To save the life of maximum number of evacuees, an efficient evacuation planning is essential. Prioritization is the process of deciding the relative importance or urgency of things or objects. It helps to focus on … Read more

An exact solution approach for an electric bus dispatch problem

We study how to efficiently plan the daily bus dispatch operation within a public transport terminal working with a fleet of electric buses. This requires to formulate and solve a new variant of the Vehicle Scheduling Problem model, in which one has to assign trip itineraries to each vehicle considering that driving ranges are limited, … Read more

Cost-Sharing Mechanism Design for Ride-Sharing

In this paper, we focus on the cost-sharing problem for ride-sharing that determines how to allocate the total ride cost between the driver and the passengers. We identify the properties that a desirable cost-sharing mechanism should have and develop a general framework which can be used to create specific cost-sharing mechanisms. We propose specific mechanisms … Read more

Exact Methods for the Traveling Salesman Problem with Multiple Drones

Drone delivery is drawing increasing attention in last-mile delivery. Effective solution methods to solve decision-making problems arising in drone delivery allow to run and assess drone delivery systems. In this paper, we focus on delivery systems with a single traditional vehicle and multiple drones working in tandem to fulfill customer requests. We address the Traveling … Read more