Hub location, routing, and route dimensioning: strategic and tactical intermodal transportation hub network design
Date
2021-10Source Title
Transportation Science
Print ISSN
0041-1655
Electronic ISSN
1526-5447
Publisher
Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
Volume
55
Issue
6
Pages
1351 - 1369
Language
English
Type
ArticleItem Usage Stats
21
views
views
103
downloads
downloads
Abstract
We propose a novel hub location model that jointly eliminates some of the traditional assumptions on the structure of the network and on the discount as a result of economies of scale in an effort to better reflect real-world logistics and transportation systems. Our model extends the hub literature in various facets: instead of connecting nonhub nodes directly to hub nodes, we consider routes with stopovers; instead of connecting pairs of hubs directly, we design routes that can visit several hub nodes; rather than dimensioning pairwise connections, we dimension routes of vehicles; and rather than working with a homogeneous fleet, we use intermodal transportation. Decisions pertinent to strategic and tactical hub location and transportation network design are concurrently made through the proposed optimization scheme. An effective branch-and-cut algorithm is developed to solve realistically sized problem instances and to provide managerial insights.
Keywords
Hub locationNetwork design
Route dimensioning
Multimodal transport
Next-day delivery
Branch and cut