A Branch-and-Price Algorithm for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Roaming Delivery Locations

We study the vehicle routing problem with roaming delivery locations in which the goal is to find a least-cost set of delivery routes for a fleet of capacitated vehicles and in which a customer order has to be delivered to the trunk of the customer’s car during the time that the car is parked at … Read more

Vehicle Routing Problems with Time Windows and Convex Node Costs

We consider a variant of the vehicle routing problems with time windows, where the objective includes the inconvenience cost modeled by a convex function on each node. We formulate this mixed integer convex program using a novel set partitioning formulation, by considering all combinations of routes and block structures over the routes. We apply a … Read more

Extended Formulations and Branch-and-Cut Algorithms for the Black-and-White Traveling Salesman Problem

In this paper we study integer linear programming models and develop branch-and-cut algorithms to solve the Black-and-White Traveling Salesman Problem (BWTSP) (Bourgeois et al., 2003) which is a variant of the well known Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). Two strategies to model the BWTSP have been used in the literature. The problem is either modeled on … Read more

Formulations and Decomposition Methods for the Incomplete Hub Location Problem With and Without Hop-Constraints

The incomplete hub location problem with and without hop-constraints is modeled using a Leontief substitution system approach. The Leontief formalism provides a set of important theoretical properties and delivers formulations with tight linear bounds that can explicitly incorporate hop constraints for each origin-destination pair of demands. Furthermore, the proposed formulations are amenable to a Benders … Read more

Moulin Mechanism Design for Freight Consolidation

In freight consolidation, a “fair” cost allocation scheme is critical for forming and sustaining horizontal cooperation that leads to reduced transportation cost. We study a cost-sharing problem in a freight consolidation system with one consolidation center and a common destination. In particular, we design a mechanism that collects bids from a set of suppliers, and … Read more

An Integer Programming approach for the Time-Dependent Traveling Salesman Problem with Time Windows

Congestion in large cities and populated areas is one of the major challenges in urban logistics, and should be addressed at different planning and operational levels. The Time-Dependent Travelling Salesman Problem (TDTSP) is a generalization of the well known Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) where the travel times are not assumed to be constant along the … Read more

An exact hybrid method for the vehicle routing problem with time windows and multiple deliverymen

The vehicle routing problem with time windows and multiple deliverymen (VRPTWMD) is a variant of the vehicle routing problem with time windows in which service times at customers depend on the number of deliverymen assigned to the route that serves them. Hence, in addition to the usual routing and scheduling decisions, the crew size for … Read more

Scalable Robust and Adaptive Inventory Routing

We consider the finite horizon inventory routing problem with uncertain demand, where a supplier must deliver a particular commodity to its customers periodically, such that even under uncertain demand the customers do not stock out, e.g. supplying residential heating oil to customers. Current techniques that solve this problem with stochastic demand, robust or adaptive optimization … Read more

Mixed-integer Programming Based Approaches for the Movement Planner Problem: Model, Heuristics and Decomposition

This is the first prize winning report for the 2012 INFORMS Railway Application Section Problem Solving Competition (https://www.informs.org/Community/RAS/Problem-Solving-Competition/2012-RAS-Problem-Solving-Competition). Article Download View Mixed-integer Programming Based Approaches for the Movement Planner Problem: Model, Heuristics and Decomposition

Complexity of Routing Problems with Release Dates and Deadlines

The desire of companies to offer same-day delivery leads to interesting new routing problems. We study the complexity of a setting in which a delivery to a customer is guaranteed to take place within a pre-specified time after the customer places the order. Thus, an order has a release date (when the order is placed) … Read more