Accelerated label setting algorithms for the elementary resource constrained shortest path problem

A label setting algorithm for solving the Elementary Resource Constrained Shortest Path Problem, using node resources to forbid repetition of nodes on the path, is implemented. A state-space augmenting approach for accelerating run times is considered. Several augmentation strategies are suggested and compared numerically.     

Efficient elementary and restricted non-elementary route pricing

Column generation is involved in the current most efficient approaches to routing problems. Set partitioning formulations model routing problems by considering all possible routes and selecting a subset that visits all customers. These formulations often produce tight lower bounds and require column generation for their pricing step. The bounds in the resulting branch-and-price are tighter when elementary routes are considered, but this approach leads to a more difficult pricing problem. Balancing the pricing with route relaxations has become crucial for the efficiency of the branch-and-price for routing problems. Recently, the ng-routes relaxation was proposed as a compromise between elementary and non-elementary routes. The ng-routes are non-elementary routes with the restriction that when following a customer, the route is not allowed to visit another customer that was visited before if they belong to a dynamically computed set. The larger the size of these sets, the closer the ng-route is to an elementary route. This work presents an efficient pricing algorithm for ng-routes and extends this algorithm for elementary routes. Therefore, we address the Shortest Path Problem with Resource Constraint (SPPRC) and the Elementary Shortest Path Problem with Resource Constraint (ESPPRC). The proposed algorithm combines the Decremental State-Space Relaxation technique (DSSR) with completion bounds. We apply this algorithm for the Generalized Vehicle Routing Problem (GVRP) and for the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP), demonstrating that it is able to price elementary routes for instances up to 200 customers, a result that doubles the size of the ESPPRC instances solved to date.     

Vehicle routing problems with alternative paths: An application to on-demand transportation

The class of vehicle routing problems involves the optimization of freight or passenger transportation activities. These problems are generally treated via the representation of the road network as a weighted complete graph. Each arc of the graph represents the shortest route for a possible origin–destination connection. Several attributes can be defined for one arc (travel time, travel cost, etc.), but the shortest route modeled by this arc is computed according to a single criterion, generally travel time. Consequently, some alternative routes proposing a different compromise between the attributes of the arcs are discarded from the solution space. We propose to consider these alternative routes and to evaluate their impact on solution algorithms and solution values through a multigraph representation of the road network. We point out the difficulties brought by this representation for general vehicle routing problems, which drives us to introduce the so-called fixed sequence arc selection problem (FSASP). We propose a dynamic programming solution method for this problem. In the context of an on-demand transportation (ODT) problem, we then propose a simple insertion algorithm based on iterative FSASP solving and a branch-and-price exact method. Computational experiments on modified instances from the literature and on realistic data issued from an ODT system in the French Doubs Central area underline the cost savings brought by the proposed methods using the multigraph model.     

Some observations about the extreme points of the Generalized Cardinality-Constrained Shortest Path Problem polytope

The Generalized Cardinality-Constrained Shortest Path Problem (GCCSPP) consists in finding the minimum cost path in a digraph, using at most r arcs in a subset F of the arc set. We propose an algebraic characterization of the extreme points of the associated polytope, and then we show that it is equivalent to the geometric one, obtained extending to the GCCSPP some known results for the cardinality-constrained shortest path problem.     

Dijkstra’s Algorithm for Solving the Shortest Path Problem on Networks Under Intuitionistic Fuzzy Environment

In this paper, a well known problem called the Shortest Path Problem (SPP) has been considered in an uncertain environment. The cost parameters for traveling each arc have been considered as Intuitionistic Fuzzy Numbers (IFNs) which are the more generalized form of fuzzy numbers involving a degree of acceptance and a degree of rejection. A heuristic methodology for solving the SPP has been developed, which aim to exploit tolerance for imprecision, uncertainty and partial truth to achieve tractability, robustness and low cost solution corresponding to the minimum-cost path or the shortest path. The Modified Intuitionistic Fuzzy Dijkstra’s Algorithm (MIFDA) has been proposed in this paper for solving Intuitionistic Fuzzy Shortest Path Problem (IFSPP) using the Intuitionistic Fuzzy Hybrid Geometric (IFHG) operator. A numerical example illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Efficient algorithms for the 2-Way Multi Modal Shortest Path Problem

We consider the 2-Way Multi Modal Shortest Path Problem (2WMMSPP). Its goal is to find two multi modal paths with total minimal cost, an outgoing path and a return path. The main difficulty lies in the fact that if a private car or bicycle is used during the outgoing path, it has to be picked up during the return path. The shortest return path is typically not equal to the shortest outgoing path as traffic conditions and timetables of public transportation vary throughout the day. In this paper we propose an efficient algorithm based on bi-directional search and provide experimental results on a realistic multi modal transportation network.     

A perturbation metaheuristic for the vehicle routing problem with private fleet and common carriers

The purpose of this article is to propose a perturbation metaheuristic for the vehicle routing problem with private fleet and common carrier (VRPPC). This problem consists of serving all customers in such a way that (1) each customer is served exactly once either by a private fleet vehicle or by a common carrier vehicle, (2) all routes associated with the private fleet start and end at the depot, (3) each private fleet vehicle performs only one route, (4) the total demand of any route does not exceed the capacity of the vehicle assigned to it, and (5) the total cost is minimized. This article describes a new metaheuristic for the VRPPC, which uses a perturbation procedure in the construction and improvement phases and also performs exchanges between the sets of customers served by the private fleet and the common carrier. Extensive computational results show the superiority of the proposed metaheuristic over previous methods.     

所有点对之间最快路问题

所有点对之间最快路问题就是要在所有点对(Vs，Vt)之间传送数据δs,t,并找出一条最快的路线．解决所有点对之间最快路问题的关键是产生有效解的等价集合．运用动态点对最短路的算法，本文首先设计了一个时间复杂性为O(mn^2)的产生有效解等价集合的算法，然后研究了静态点对之间最快路问题和动态点对之间最快路问题，其算法的时间复杂性分别为O(mn^2)和O(m^2n^2)．最后本文研究了求和对最小的路问题，证明该问题可以在O(mn^2)时间内解决．     

Soft Constraint Logic Programming and Generalized Shortest Path Problems

In this paper we study the relationship between Constraint Programming (CP) and Shortest Path (SP) problems. In particular, we show that classical, multicriteria, partially ordered, and modality-based SP problems can be naturally modeled and solved within the Soft Constraint Logic Programming (SCLP) framework, where logic programming is coupled with soft constraints. In this way we provide this large class of SP problems with a high-level and declarative linguistic support whose semantics takes care of both finding the cost of the shortest path(s) and also of actually finding the path(s). On the other hand, some efficient algorithms for certain classes of SP problems can be exploited to provide some classes of SCLP programs with an efficient way to compute their semantics.     

The chance constrained critical path with location-scale distributions

The Chance Constrained Critical Path (CCCP) generally depends on the preassigned minimum probability level. It is shown that for a wide class of probability distributions there always exists a probability value for which the CCCP remains unchanged for all probabilities greater than or equal to that value. This probability value is easily obtained from an optimal solution of a simple network problem. In addition, necessary and sufficient conditions for the CCCP to be unconditionally independent of the minimum probability level are given for that class of probability distributions.     

智能网联下无人车配送路径优化

结合智能网联无人车实时信息共享与路径选择的特点,研究其配送路径优化问题。通过引进关键点更新策略,制定路径预规划阶段和路径实时调整阶段无人车路径选择策略,提出智能网联环境下基于实时交通信息的车辆路径问题两阶段模型。其中,路径预规划阶段模型确定初始路径与每辆车服务的客户点,路径实时调整阶段模型对每辆车的路径实时调整。对于该优化模型设计遗传算法进行求解,并通过算例验证了模型与算法的可行性。研究结果表明,本文构建的无人车配送优化模型,有效的结合了无人车实时通信与路径选择的特点,节省了无人车配送时间。研究对于无人车在第三方物流配送领域的推广应用具有一定的探索意义。     

Increasing Internet Capacity Using Local Search

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is one of the most commonly used intra-domain internet routing protocol. Traffic flow is routed along shortest paths, splitting flow evenly at nodes where several outgoing links are on shortest paths to the destination. The weights of the links, and thereby the shortest path routes, can be changed by the network operator. The weights could be set proportional to the physical lengths of the links, but often the main goal is to avoid congestion, i.e. overloading of links, and the standard heuristic recommended by Cisco (a major router vendor) is to make the weight of a link inversely proportional to its capacity.We study the problem of optimizing OSPF weights for a given a set of projected demands so as to avoid congestion. We show this problem is NP-hard, even for approximation, and propose a local search heuristic to solve it. We also provide worst-case results about the performance of OSPF routing vs. an optimal multi-commodity flow routing. Our numerical experiments compare the results obtained with our local search heuristic to the optimal multi-commodity flow routing, as well as simple and commonly used heuristics for setting the weights. Experiments were done with a proposed next-generation AT&T WorldNet backbone as well as synthetic internetworks.     

Managing pharmaceuticals delivery service using a hybrid particle swarm intelligence approach

Medicines or drugs have unique characteristics of short life cycle, small size, light weight, restrictive distribution time and the need of temperature and humidity control (selected items only). Thus, logistics companies often use different types of vehicles with different carrying capacities, and considering fixed and variable costs in service delivery, which make the vehicle assignment and route optimization more complicated. In this study, we formulate the problem to a multi-type vehicle assignment and mixed integer programming route optimization model with fixed fleet size under the constraints of distribution time and carrying capacity. Given non-deterministic polynomial hard and optimal algorithm can only be used to solve small-size problem, a hybrid particle swarm intelligence (PSI) heuristic approach, which adopts the crossover and mutation operators from genetic algorithm and 2-opt local search strategy, is proposed to solve the problem. We also adapt a principle based on cost network and Dijkstra’s algorithm for vehicle scheduling to balance the distribution time limit and the high loading rate. We verify the relative performance of the proposed method against several known optimal or heuristic solutions using a standard data set for heterogeneous fleet vehicle routing problem. Additionally, we compare the relative performance of our proposed Hybrid PSI algorithm with two intelligent-based algorithms, Hybrid Population Heuristic algorithm and Improved Genetic Algorithm, using a real-world data set to illustrate the practical and validity of the model and algorithm.

     

Optimization of transit route network,vehicle headways and timetables for large-scale transit networks

This paper presents a metaheuristic method for optimizing transit networks, including route network design, vehicle headway, and timetable assignment. Given information on transit demand, the street network of the transit service area, and total fleet size, the goal is to identify a transit network that minimizes a passenger cost function. Transit network optimization is a complex combinatorial problem due to huge search spaces of route network, vehicle headways, and timetables. The methodology described in this paper includes a representation of transit network variable search spaces (route network, headway, and timetable); a user cost function based on passenger random arrival times, route network, vehicle headways, and timetables; and a metaheuristic search scheme that combines simulated annealing, tabu, and greedy search methods. This methodology has been tested with problems reported in the existing literature, and applied to a large-scale realistic network optimization problem. The results show that the methodology is capable of producing improved solutions to large-scale transit network design problems in reasonable amounts of time and computing resources.     

A penalty function heuristic for the resource constrained shortest path problem

The resource constrained shortest path problem (RCSP) consists of finding the shortest path between two nodes of an assigned network, with the constraint that traversing an arc of the network implies the consumption of certain limited resources. In this paper we propose a new heuristic for the solution of the RCSP problem in medium and large scale networks. It is based on the extension to the discrete case of the penalty function heuristic approach for the fast ε-approximate solution of difficult large-scale continuous linear programming problems. Computational experience on test instances has shown that the proposed penalty function heuristic (PFH) is very effective in the solution of medium and large scale RCSP instances. For all the tests reported it provides very good upper bounds (in many cases the optimal solution) in less than 26 iterations, where each iteration requires only the computation of a shortest path.     

A multi-modal approach to the location of a rapid transit line

The location of a rapid transit line (RTL) represents a very complex decision problem because of the large number of decision makers, unquantifiable criteria and uncertain data. In this context Operational Research can help in the design process by providing tools to generate and assess alternative solutions. For this purpose two bicriterion mathematical programming models — the Maximum Coverage Shortest Path model and the Median Shortest Path model — have been developed in the past. In this paper a new bicriterion model, which can evaluate in a more realistic way the attractivity of an RTL is introduced. To calculate an estimation of the non-inferior solution set of the problem, a procedure based on a k-shortest path algorithm was developed. This approach was applied to a well-known sample problem and the results are discussed and compared with those obtained using a Median Shortest Path model.     

Implicit depot assignments and rotations in vehicle routing heuristics

Vehicle routing variants with multiple depots and mixed fleet present intricate combinatorial aspects related to sequencing choices, vehicle type choices, depot choices, and depots positioning. This paper introduces a dynamic programming methodology for efficiently evaluating compound neighborhoods combining sequence-based moves with an optimal choice of vehicle and depot, and an optimal determination of the first customer to be visited in the route, called rotation. The assignment choices, making the richness of the problem, are thus no more addressed in the solution structure, but implicitly determined during each move evaluation. Two meta-heuristics relying on these concepts, an iterated local search and a hybrid genetic algorithm, are presented. Extensive computational experiments demonstrate the remarkable performance of these methods on classic benchmark instances for multi-depot vehicle routing problems with and without fleet mix, as well as the notable contribution of the implicit depot choice and positioning methods to the search performance. New state-of-the-art results are obtained for multi-depot vehicle routing problems (MDVRP), and multi-depot vehicle fleet mix problems (MDVFMP) with unconstrained fleet size. The proposed concepts are fairly general, and widely applicable to many other vehicle routing variants.     

The distance constrained multiple vehicle traveling purchaser problem

In the Distance Constrained Multiple Vehicle Traveling Purchaser Problem (DC-MVTPP) a fleet of vehicles is available to visit suppliers offering products at different prices and with different quantity availabilities. The DC-MVTPP consists in selecting a subset of suppliers so to satisfy products demand at the minimum traveling and purchasing costs, while ensuring that the distance traveled by each vehicle does not exceed a predefined upper bound. The problem generalizes the classical Traveling Purchaser Problem (TPP) and adds new realistic features to the decision problem. In this paper we present different mathematical programming formulations for the problem. A branch-and-price algorithm is also proposed to solve a set partitioning formulation where columns represent feasible routes for the vehicles. At each node of the branch-and-bound tree, the linear relaxation of the set partitioning formulation, augmented by the branching constraints, is solved through column generation. The pricing problem is solved using dynamic programming. A set of instances has been derived from benchmark instances for the asymmetric TPP. Instances with up to 100 suppliers and 200 products have been solved to optimality.     

Infrastructure development for conversion to environmentally friendly fuel

An important concern for any nation wishing to convert to alternate, environmentally friendly energy sources is the development of appropriate fuel distribution infrastructure. We address the problem of optimally locating gas station facilities for developing nations, like India, which are in the process of converting from leaded to unleaded fuel. Importantly, a similar approach may be used in developed countries, which are in the process of converting to automobiles using hydrogen or electrical energy. An integer-programming model with the objective of balancing the perspectives of coverage and cost is presented for this facility location problem. Given the existing network of roads, the model considers the traveling population, the location of existing facilities and the cost of, either converting these facilities to carry unleaded fuel, or of installing new facilities in an attempt to minimize cost and simultaneously maximize coverage of population. We develop a heuristic solution procedure for this problem. The methodology is applied to data sets obtained from Current et al. [J.R. Current, C.S. ReVelle, J.L. Cohon, Decision Sciences 19 (1988) 490] representing the Ohio state limited access highway network, and to the Indian national highway network. Additionally, extensive simulations are carried out in order to examine where our approach compares with the maximum weighted spanning tree approach. This work extends the Maximum Covering/Shortest Path problem (MCSPP) formulated by Current et al. [J.R. Current, C.S. ReVelle, J.L. Cohon, European Journal of Operational Research 21 (1985) 189] to accommodate multiple sources and destinations.     

Impact analysis of maritime cabotage legislations on liner hub-and-spoke shipping network design

Maritime cabotage is a legislation published by a particular coastal country, which is used to conduct the cargo transportation between its two domestic ports. This paper proposes a two-phase mathematical programming model to formulate the liner hub-and-spoke shipping network design problem subject to the maritime cabotage legislations, i.e., the hub location and feeder allocation problem for phase I and the ship route design with ship fleet deployment problem for phase II. The problem in phase I is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming model. By developing a hub port expanding technique, the problem in phase II is formulated as a vehicle routing problem with pickup and delivery. A Lagrangian relaxation based solution method is proposed to solve it. Numerical implementations based on the Asia–Europe–Oceania shipping services are carried out to account for the impact analysis of the maritime cabotage legislations on liner hub-and-spoke shipping network design problem.