A hub covering model for cargo delivery systems

Abstract

The hub location problem appears in a variety of applications including airline systems, cargo delivery systems, and telecommunication network design. When we analyze the application areas separately, we observe that each area has its own characteristics. In this research we focus on cargo delivery systems. Our interviews with various cargo delivery firms operating in Turkey enabled us to determine the constraints, requirements, and criteria of the hub location problem specific to the cargo delivery sector. We present integer programming formulations and large-scale implementations of the models within Turkey. The results are compared with the current structure of a cargo delivery firm operating in Turkey. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.