Browsing by Subject "Transportation problems (Programming)"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Open Access
A heuristic algorithm for an integrated routing and scheduling problem with stops en-route
(2009) Uzun, Emre
In this study, we examine an integrated routing and scheduling problem that arises in the context of transportation of hazardous materials. The purpose of the problem is to find a minimum risk route between an origin and a destination point on a given network and to build a schedule on this route that determines where and how long to stop for a truck carrying hazardous materials. The objective is to minimize the risk imposed to the society while completing the path within a given time limit. The risk is defined as the expected population exposure in the presence of an accident which varies different times in a day. There are exact algorithms available in the literature that solve the problem. However, these algorithms are not capable of solving large sized networks due to memory constraints. Our aim is to develop a heuristic procedure that can handle larger networks. We separate the problem into two independent components, routing and scheduling, and propose solution algorithms which would communicate each other when running the algorithm. For the routing component we define a neighborhood structure that can be used to generate several paths around a given path on a network. The search procedure takes an initial path and improves it by generating different paths in the defined neighborhood. For the scheduling component, we discuss mixed integer programming, dynamic programming and heuristic approaches. We run the proposed heuristic algorithm on several test networks and compare its performance with the optimal solutions. We also present the application of the heuristic procedure on a large sized Turkey Road Network.
Open Access
Hub location and Hub network design
(2009) Alumur, Sibel Alev
he hub location problem deals with finding the location of hub facilities and allocating the demand nodes to these hub facilities so as to effectively route the demand between origin–destination pairs. Hub location problems arise in various application settings in telecommunication and transportation. In the extensive literature on the hub location problem, it has widely been assumed that the subgraph induced by the hub nodes is complete. Throughout this thesis we relax the complete hub network assumption in hub location problems and focus on designing hub networks that are not necessarily complete. We approach to hub location problems from a network design perspective. In addition to the location and allocation decisions, we also study the decision on how the hub network must be designed. We focus on the single allocation version of the problems where each demand center is allocated to a single hub node. We start with introducing the 3-stop hub covering network design problem. In this problem, we aim to design hub networks so that all origin– destination pairs receive service by visiting at most three hubs on a route. Then, we include hub network design decisions in the classical hub location problems introduced in the literature. We introduce the single allocation incomplete p-hub median, hub location with fixed costs, hub covering, and p-hub center network design problems to the literature. Lastly, we introduce the multimodal hub location and hub network design problem. We include the possibility of using different hub links, and allow for different transportation modes between hubs, and for different types of service time promises between origin–destination pairs, while designing the hub network in the multimodal problem. In this problem, we jointly consider transportation costs and travel times, which are studied separately in hub location problems presented in the literature. Computational analyses with all of the proposed models are presented on the various instances of the CAB data set and on the Turkish network.
Open Access
Hub location problem for air-ground transportation sistems with time restrictions
(2006) Elmastaş, Seda
In this thesis, we study the problem of designing a service network for cargo delivery sector. We analyzed the structure of cargo delivery firms in Turkey and identified the features of the network. Generally, in the literature only one type of vehicle is considered when dispatching cargo. However, our analysis showed that in some cases both planes and trucks are used for a better service quality. Therefore, we seek a design in which all cargo between origin and destinations is delivered with minimum cost using trucks or planes within a given time bound. We call the problem “Time Constrained Hierarchical Hub Location Problem (TCHH)” and propose a model for it. The model includes some non-linear constraints. After linearizations, the TCHH is solved with data taken from cargo delivery firms. The computational results are reported and comparison with the current structure of a cargo delivery firm is given.
Open Access
Hub location under competition
(2013) Mahmutoğulları, Ali İrfan
Hubs are consolidation and dissemination points in many-to-many flow networks. The hub location problem is to locate hubs among available nodes and allocate non-hub nodes to these hubs. The mainstream hub location studies focus on optimal decisions of one decision-maker with respect to some objective(s) even though the markets that benefit hubbing are oligopolies. Therefore, in this thesis, we propose a competitive hub location problem where the market is assumed to be a duopoly. Two decision-makers (or firms) sequentially decide the locations of their hubs and then customers choose the firm according to provided service levels. Each decision-maker aims to maximize his/her market share. Having investigated the existing studies in the field of economy, retail location and operation research, we propose two problems for the leader (former decision-maker) and follower (latter decision-maker): (r|Xp) hub-medianoid and (r|p) hub-centroid problems. After defining them as combinatorial optimization problems, the problems are proved to be NP-hard. Linear programming models are presented for these problems as well as exact solution algorithms for the (r|p) hub-centroid problem that outperform the linear model in terms of memory requirement and CPU time. The performance of models and algorithms are tested by the computational analysis conducted on two well-known data sets from the hub location literature.
Open Access
Modeling and heuristic approaches for the Hub covering problem over incomplete Hub networks
(2009) Çalık, Hatice
Hubs are the accumulation points within the transportation and the telecommunication networks that collect and distribute the flow or data, which is originated from a starting point and needs to be transferred to a destination point. The main application areas of the hub location problem are airline systems, telecommunication network design and cargo delivery systems. In the literature, a common treatment of hub location problems is under the classification dating back to the location literature. In this classification, four different types are identified. Namely, the p-hub median problem, the hub location problem with fixed costs, the p-hub center problem, and the hub covering problem in the literature. In most of the hub location studies, the hub networks are assumed to be complete; however, the observations on the real life cases showed that this may not be the case. Therefore, in this thesis, we relax this assumption and focus on the single allocation version of the hub covering problem over incomplete hub networks. We propose two new mathematical formulations and a tabu search based heuristic algorithm for this problem. We perform several computational experiments on the formulations with the CAB data set from the literature and a larger scale network corresponding to the cities in Turkey. The results we obtained from our experimentations reveals that designing incomplete hub networks to provide service within a given service time bound is cost effective in accordance with designing complete hub networks.
Open Access
P-hub maximal covering problem and extensions for gradual decay functions
(2013) Peker, Meltem
Hubs are special facilities that serve as switching, transshipment and sorting nodes in many to many distribution systems. The hub location problem deals with the selection of the locations of hub facilities and finding assignments of demand nodes to hubs simultaneously. The p-hub maximal covering problem, that is one of the variations of the hub location problems, aims to find locations of hubs so as to maximize the covered demand that are within the coverage distance with a predetermined number of hubs. In the literature of hub location, p-hub maximal covering problem is conducted in the framework of only binary coverage; origin-destination pairs are covered if the total path length is less than coverage distance and not covered at all if the path length exceeds the coverage distance. Throughout this thesis, we extend the definition of coverage and introduce “partial coverage” that changes with the distance, to the hub location literature. In this thesis, we study the p-hub maximal covering problem for single and multiple allocations and provide new formulations that are also valid for partial coverage. The problems are proved to be NP-Hard. We even show that assignment problem with a given set of hubs for the single allocation version of the problem is also NP-Hard. Computational results for all the proposed formulations with different data sets are presented and discussed.
Open Access
Routing and scheduling decisions in the hierarchical hub location problem
(2013) Dükkancı, Okan
Hubs are facilities that consolidate and disseminate flow in many-to-many distribution systems. The hub location problem considers decisions including the locations of hubs on a network and also the allocations of the demand (non-hub) nodes to these hubs. In this study, a hierarchical multimodal hub network is proposed. Based on this network, a hub covering problem with a service time bound is defined. The hierarchical network consists of three layers. In this study, two different structures, which are ring(s)-star-star (R-S-S) and ring(s)-ring(s)-star (R-R-S), are considered. The multimodal network has three different types of vehicles at each layer, which are airplanes, big trucks and pickup trucks. For the proposed problems (R-S-S and R-R-S), two mathematical models are presented and strengthened with some valid inequalities. The computational analysis is conducted over Turkish and CAB data sets. Finally, we propose a heuristic algorithm in order to solve large-sized problems and also test the performance of this heuristic approach on Turkish network data set.
Open Access
Valid inequalities for the problem of optimizing a nonseparable piecewise linear function on 0-1 variables
(2011) Aksüt, Ziyaattin Hüsrev
In many procurement and transportation applications, the unit prices depend on the amount purchased or transported. This results in piecewise linear cost functions. Our aim is to study the structure that arises due to a piecewise linear objective function and to propose valid inequalities that can be used to solve large procurement and transportation problems. We consider the problem of optimizing a nonseparable piecewise linear function on 0-1 variables. We linearize this problem using a multiple-choice model and investigate properties of facet defining inequalities. We propose valid inequalities and lifting results.