A Variable Neighborhood Search for the Multi Depot Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

The aim of this paper is to propose an algorithm based on the philosophy of the Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) to solve Multi Depot Vehicle Routing Problems with Time Windows. The paper has two main contributions. First, from a technical point of view, it presents the first application of a VNS for this problem and several design issues of VNS algorithms are discussed. Second, from a problem oriented point of view the computational results show that the approach is competitive with an existing Tabu Search algorithm with respect to both solution quality and computation times.     

光传送网中结合传输损伤的路由和波长分配

在波长路由光网优化设计的过程中考虑了物理传输损伤造成的限制,提出了一种联合优化思路.将光信号在传输过程中的物理损伤作为问题公式的另一维约束,给出了相应的启发式算法,并按照由粗到细的机制对所提出的思路做了相应的评估,同时对负荷平衡问题作了初步的分析.数值结果表明这种算法可以获得与优化值相近的波长需求解,并且能够保证网络的传输性能,其业务分布随着备选路径的增加而趋向均衡.     

Improved modeling and solution methods for the multi-resource routing problem

This paper presents modeling and solution method improvements for the Multi-Resource Routing Problem (MRRP) with flexible tasks. The MRRP with flexible tasks is used to model routing and scheduling problems for intermodal drayage operations in which two resources (tractors and trailers) perform tasks to transport loaded and empty equipment. Tasks may be either well defined, in which both the origin and the destination of a movement are given, or flexible, in which the origin or the destination is chosen by the model. This paper proposes methods to effectively manage the number of options considered for flexible tasks (either feasible origins for a known destination or feasible destinations for a known origin). This modeling change generates sufficient options to allow for low-cost solutions while maintaining reasonable computational effort. We also propose a new solution method that uses randomized route generation. Computational results from test cases show that these changes improve the quality of solutions by at least 5% in the test cases as compared to methods from previous studies.     

The Problem of Capacity Addition in Multi-user Elastic Demand Communication Networks

In this paper we consider some properties on prices under flow control in a network that is to be shared by noncooperative users. Each user is faced with an optimization problem which is formulated as the minimization of its own criterion subject to constraint on the flows of the other users. The operating points of the network are the Nash equilibria of the underlying routing game. Our objective is to study the behavior of prices of all users when the network designer needs to allocate capacities to network links. For parallel links topologies, we show that degradation of the performances such as prices will not take place, as well as the users may find it beneficial to improve their requests     

Asymptotic analysis of the effect of arrival model uncertainties in some optimal routing problems

We study the effect of arrival model uncertainties on the optimal routing in a system of parallel queues. For exponential service time distributions and Bernoulli routing, the optimal mean system delay generally depends on the interarrival time distribution. Any error in modeling the arriving process will cause a model-based optimal routing algorithm to produce a mean system delay higher than the true optimum. In this paper, we present an asymptotic analysis of the behavior of this error under heavy traffic conditions for a general renewal arrival process. An asymptotic analysis of the error in optimal mean delay due to uncertainties in the service time distribution for Poisson arrivals was reported in Ref. 6, where it was shown that, when the first moment of the service time distribution is known, this error in performance vanishes asymptotically as the traffic load approaches the system capacity. In contrast, this paper establishes the somewhat surprising result that, when only the first moment of the arrival distribution is known, the error in optimal mean delay due to uncertainties in the arrival model is unbounded as the traffic approaches the system capacity. However, when both first and second moments are known, the error vanishes asymptotically. Numerical examples corroborating the theoretical results are also presented.This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants ECS-88-01912 and EID-92-12122 and by NASA under Contract NAG 2-595.The authors wish to thank an anonymous referee for pointing out Ref. 20, thus avoiding the need for an explicit proof of convexity of the cost function considered in the paper.     

m-aryn-cube网络的最优路由

基于可选邻接点的概念,在m-ary n-cube网络中提出一种新的最优寻径算法.这种算法始终在当前结点的可选邻接点中选取最空闲邻接点作为下一个信息传输点.该算法使得从源结点到达目的结点路由是最短路由也是最快速路由,而且在多项式时间内可以完成.     

A Study of the Connectivity Over Time Behavior of On-Demand Ad Hoc Path Selection Schemes

Selecting the most appropriate path between each pair of nodes in an ad hoc network is an issue with major impact on network performance. Many schemes were proposed and compared in the literature, using various criteria. However, the connectivity over time behavior of these schemes, which is important to some practical applications, was not well studied, especially with regards to the terrain type. In this work we use simulation to study this aspect of network performance. We demonstrate that a different connectivity requirement and a different time horizon may dictate a different scheme to use. We also demonstrate that path selection schemes are not equally sensitive to the terrain.     

Forwarding and optical indices of 4-regular circulant networks

An all-to-all routing in a graph G is a set of oriented paths of G, with exactly one path for each ordered pair of vertices. The load of an edge under an all-to-all routing R is the number of times it is used (in either direction) by paths of R, and the maximum load of an edge is denoted by $\pi (G,R)$. The edge-forwarding index $\pi (G)$ is the minimum of $\pi (G,R)$ over all possible all-to-all routings R, and the arc-forwarding index $\overrightarrow{\pi }(G)$ is defined similarly by taking direction into consideration, where an arc is an ordered pair of adjacent vertices. Denote by $w(G,R)$ the minimum number of colours required to colour the paths of R such that any two paths having an edge in common receive distinct colours. The optical index $w(G)$ is defined to be the minimum of $w(G,R)$ over all possible R, and the directed optical index $\overrightarrow{w}(G)$ is defined similarly by requiring that any two paths having an arc in common receive distinct colours. In this paper we obtain lower and upper bounds on these four invariants for 4-regular circulant graphs with connection set $\{\pm 1,\pm s\}$, $1<s<n/2$. We give approximation algorithms with performance ratio a small constant for the corresponding forwarding index and routing and wavelength assignment problems for some families of 4-regular circulant graphs.     

A Branch-and-price Algorithm for the Multi-Vehicle Covering Tour Problem

In this paper, we propose a Branch-and-price (BP) algorithm and a Column Generation Heuristic (CGH) for the Multi-Vehicle Covering Tour Problem (m-CTP). Specific dominance and extension pruning rules are introduced to accelerate the resolution of the pricing problems. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work dedicated to the exact resolution of m-CTP. The algorithm managed to solve about 30% of the instances in our test bed, within a 4 hour CPU time limit. Our preliminary computational experiments suggest that both the lower bounds provided by the formulation behind BP and the CGH upper bounds are of good quality.