Search results for "routing"
showing 10 items of 587 documents
Variable Fixing for Two-Arc Sequences in Branch-Price-and-Cut Algorithms on Path-Based Models
2020
Variable fixing by reduced costs is a popular technique for accelerating the solution process of mixed-integer linear programs. For vehicle-routing problems solved by branch-price-and-cut algorithms, it is possible to fix to zero the variables associated with all routes containing at least one arc from a subset of arcs determined according to the dual solution of a linear relaxation. This is equivalent to removing these arcs from the network used to generate the routes. In this paper, we extend this technique to routes containing sequences of two arcs. Such sequences or their arcs cannot be removed directly from the network because routes traversing only one arc of a sequence might still b…
Contributions to Branch-and-Price-and-Cut Algorithms for Routing Problems
2019
This article deals with new exact branch-and-price-and-cut algorithms for the solution of routing problems. Specialized methods for the pickup-and-delivery problem (PDP), the truck-and-trailer routing problem (TTRP), the periodic vehicle routing problem (PVRP) and a service network design and hub location problem (SNDHLP) are presented. We develop a new technique for the acceleration of bidirectional labeling algorithms by a dynamic choice of the merge point. Moreover, for variants of the PDP, the bidirectional labeling can be effectively applied for the first time. In the TTRP, we model the extension to a 2 days planning horizon and the consideration of a quantity-dependent transfer time. …
GIS Infomobility for Travellers
2016
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are essential systems to support decisions on territorial and environmental aspects. But they not always have been properly used for this purpose. Only in recent years GIS have been getting better used for the planning, management and control of the territory. The application of GIS to the transport sector has become relevant both for management and decision-making in support of Public Administration (PA) and citizens. GIS are particularly useful for roads and routing graphs management capabilities as well as for searching the most suitable path. The results achieved in this research activity aimed to evaluate different road graphs, proprietary and fre…
The last-mile vehicle routing problem with delivery options
2021
AbstractThe ongoing rise in e-commerce comes along with an increasing number of first-time delivery failures due to the absence of the customer at the delivery location. Failed deliveries result in rework which in turn has a large impact on the carriers’ delivery cost. In the classical vehicle routing problem (VRP) with time windows, each customer request has only one location and one time window describing where and when shipments need to be delivered. In contrast, we introduce and analyze the vehicle routing problem with delivery options (VRPDO), in which some requests can be shipped to alternative locations with possibly different time windows. Furthermore, customers may prefer some deli…
A New Branch-and-Cut Algorithm for the Generalized Directed Rural Postman Problem
2016
The generalized directed rural postman problem, also known as the close-enough arc routing problem, is an arc routing problem with some interesting real-life applications, such as routing for meter reading. In this article we introduce two new formulations for this problem as well as various families of new valid inequalities that are used to design and implement a branch-and-cut algorithm. The computational results obtained on test bed instances from the literature show that this algorithm outperforms the existing exact methods
A more efficient cutting planes approach for the green vehicle routing problem with capacitated alternative fuel stations
2021
AbstractThe Green Vehicle Routing Problem with Capacitated Alternative Fuel Stations assumes that, at each station, the number of vehicles simultaneously refueling cannot exceed the number of available pumps. The state-of-the-art solution method, based on the generation of all feasible non-dominated paths, performs well only with up to 2 pumps. In fact, it needs cloning the paths between every pair of pumps. To overcome this issue, in this paper, we propose new path-based MILP models without cloning paths, for both the scenario with private stations (i.e., owned by the fleet manager) and that with public stations. Then, a more efficient cutting plane approach is designed for addressing both…
Branch-and-Cut for the Split Delivery Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows
2019
The split delivery vehicle routing problem with time windows (SDVRPTW) is a notoriously hard combinatorial optimization problem. First, it is hard to find a useful compact mixed-integer programming (MIP) formulation for the SDVRPTW. Standard modeling approaches either suffer from inherent symmetries (mixed-integer programs with a vehicle index) or cannot exactly capture all aspects of feasibility. Because of the possibility to visit customers more than once, the standard mechanisms to propagate load and time along the routes fail. Second, the lack of useful formulations has rendered any direct MIP-based approach impossible. Up to now, the most effective exact algorithms for the SDVRPTW hav…
Exact solution of the soft-clustered vehicle-routing problem
2020
Abstract The soft-clustered vehicle-routing problem (SoftCluVRP) extends the classical capacitated vehicle-routing problem by one additional constraint: The customers are partitioned into clusters and feasible routes must respect the soft-cluster constraint, that is, all customers of the same cluster must be served by the same vehicle. In this article, we design and analyze different branch-and-price algorithms for the exact solution of the SoftCluVRP. The algorithms differ in the way the column-generation subproblem, a variant of the shortest-path problem with resource constraints (SPPRC), is solved. The standard approach for SPPRCs is based on dynamic-programming labeling algorithms. We s…
Branch-price-and-cut algorithms for the pickup and delivery problem with time windows and multiple stacks
2016
Abstract This paper proposes models and algorithms for the pickup and delivery vehicle routing problem with time windows and multiple stacks. Each stack is rear-loaded and is operated in a last-in-first-out (LIFO) fashion, meaning that when an item is picked up, it is positioned at the rear of a stack. An item can only be delivered if it is in that position. This problem arises in the transportation of heavy or dangerous material where unnecessary handling should be avoided, such as in the transportation of cars between car dealers and the transportation of livestock from farms to slaughterhouses. To solve this problem, we propose two different branch-price-and-cut algorithms. The first sol…
Nested branch-and-price-and-cut for vehicle routing problems with multiple resource interdependencies
2019
Abstract This paper considers vehicle routing problems (VRPs) with multiple resource interdependencies and addresses the development and computational evaluation of an exact branch-and-price-and-cut algorithm for their solution. An interdependency between two resources means that the two resource consumptions influence one another in such a way that a tradeoff exists between them. This impacts the feasibility and/or the cost of a solution. The subproblem in branch-and-price-and-cut procedures for VRPs is very often a variant of the shortest-path problem with resource constraints (SPPRC). For the exact solution of many SPPRC variants, dynamic-programming based labeling algorithms are predomi…