The Downs-Thomson Paradox: Existence, Uniqueness and Stability of User Equilibria

Consider a network where two routes are available for users wishing to travel from a source to a destination. On one route (which could be viewed as private transport) service slows as traffic increases. On the other (which could be viewed as public transport) the service frequency increases with demand. The Downs-Thomson paradox occurs when improvements in service produce an overall decline in performance as user equilibria adjust. Using the model proposed by Calvert [10], with a ⋅|M|1 queue corresponding to the private transport route, and a bulk-service infinite server queue modelling the public transport route, we give a complete analysis of this system in the setting of probabilistic routing. We obtain the user equilibria (which are not always unique), and determine their stability.AMS subject classification: 60K30, 90B15, 90B20, 91A10, 91A13This revised version was published online in June 2005 with corrected coverdate     

Route stability in vehicle routing decisions: a bi-objective approach using metaheuristics

In this paper, we argue that vehicle routing solutions are often tactical decisions, that should not be changed too often or too much. For marketing or other reasons, vehicle routing solutions should be stable, i.e. a new solution (when e.g. new customers require service) should be as similar as possible to a solution already in use. Simultaneously however, this new solution should still have a good quality in the traditional sense (e.g. small total travel cost). In this paper, we develop a way to measure the difference between two vehicle routing solutions. We use this distance measure to create a metaheuristic approach that will find solutions that are “close” (in the solution space) to a given baseline solution and at the same time have a high quality in the sense that their total distance traveled is small. By using this approach, the dispatcher is offered a choice of Pareto-optimal solutions, allowing him to make a trade-off between changing his existing solution and allowing a longer travel distance. Some experiments are performed to show the effectiveness of the approach.     

A Hybrid Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm for Solving Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows

Vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) involves the routing of a set of vehicles with limited capacity from a central depot to a set of geographically dispersed customers with known demands and predefined time windows. The problem is solved by optimizing routes for the vehicles so as to meet all given constraints as well as to minimize the objectives of traveling distance and number of vehicles. This paper proposes a hybrid multiobjective evolutionary algorithm (HMOEA) that incorporates various heuristics for local exploitation in the evolutionary search and the concept of Pareto's optimality for solving multiobjective optimization in VRPTW. The proposed HMOEA is featured with specialized genetic operators and variable-length chromosome representation to accommodate the sequence-oriented optimization in VRPTW. Unlike existing VRPTW approaches that often aggregate multiple criteria and constraints into a compromise function, the proposed HMOEA optimizes all routing constraints and objectives simultaneously, which improves the routing solutions in many aspects, such as lower routing cost, wider scattering area and better convergence trace. The HMOEA is applied to solve the benchmark Solomon's 56 VRPTW 100-customer instances, which yields 20 routing solutions better than or competitive as compared to the best solutions published in literature.     

Solving a multiobjective location routing problem with a metaheuristic based on tabu search. Application to a real case in Andalusia

In this work we present a multiobjective location routing problem and solve it with a multiobjective metaheuristic procedure. In this type of problem, we have to locate some plants within a set of possible locations to meet the demands of a number of clients with multiple objectives. This type of model is used to solve a problem with real data in the region of Andalusia (Spain). Thus, we study the location of two incineration plants for the disposal of solid animal waste from some preestablished locations in Andalusia, and design the routes to serve the different slaughterhouses in this region. This must be done while taking into account certain economic objectives (start-up, maintenance, and transport costs) and social objectives (social rejection by towns on the truck routes, maximum risk as an equity criterion, and the negative implications for towns close to the plant).     

基于三维矩阵重构争论有向图的域间路由振荡检测算法

边界网关协议(Border G atew ay P rotoco l,BGP)是当前In ternet域间路由协议的事实标准,基于策略的路由选择过程使它不再是严格意义上的距离矢量协议,也不再具有距离矢量协议的收敛性.V aradhan指出,自治系统各自为政的策略配置方式会导致全局策略冲突,引起永久性的路由振荡.针对该问题,G riffin利用稳定路径问题(S tab le Path P rob lem,SPP)模型形式化的抽象出BGP协议行为,并以此为基础提出了一种分布式的策略冲突检测算法,尽管该算法完全避免了传统方法的缺陷,但仍然存在泄漏策略信息和对BGP协议改动太大以及浪费网络资源的问题.本文提出了一种基于安全多方计算的检测路由策略冲突的方法,用于在怀疑BGP路由发生振荡时,动态的检测系统中是否存在策略冲突.该方法采纳了G riffin的理论基础,同时由于巧妙的运用了安全多方计算协议,可以完全解决G riffin算法的问题,具有很好的实用性.     

Efficient Heuristics for the Heterogeneous Fleet Multitrip VRP with Application to a Large-Scale Real Case

The basic Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) consists of computing a set of trips of minimum total cost, to deliver fixed amounts of goods to customers with a fleet of identical vehicles. Few papers address the case with several types of vehicles (heterogeneous fleet). Most of them assume an unlimited number of vehicles of each type, to dimension the fleet from a strategic point of view. This paper tackles the more realistic tactical or operational case, with a fixed number of vehicles of each type, and the optional possibility for each vehicle to perform several trips. It describes several heuristics, including a very efficient one that progressively merges small starting trips, while ensuring that they can be performed by the fleet. This heuristic seeks to minimize the number of required vehicles as a secondary objective. It outperforms classical VRP heuristics, can easily handle various constraints, and gives very good initial solutions for a tabu search method. The real case of a French manufacturer of furniture with 775 destination stores is presented.     

Dynamic routing in open queueing networks: Brownian models,cut constraints and resource pooling

We present an introductory review of recent work on the control of open queueing networks. We assume that customers of different types arrive at a network and pass through the system via one of several possible routes; the set of routes available to a customer depends on its type. A route through the network is an ordered set of service stations: a customer queues for service at each station on its route and then leaves the system. The two methods of control we consider are the routing of customers through the network, and the sequencing of service at the stations, and our aim is to minimize the number of customers in the system. We concentrate especially on the insights which can be obtained from heavy traffic analysis, and in particular from Harrison's Brownian network models. Our main conclusion is that in many respects dynamic routingsimplifies the behaviour of networks, and that under good control policies it may well be possible to model the aggregate behaviour of a network quite straightforwardly.Supported by SERC grant GR/F 94194.     

Extension of the 2-p-opt and 1-shift algorithms to the heterogeneous probabilistic traveling salesman problem

The probabilistic traveling salesman problem is a well known problem that is quite challenging to solve. It involves finding the tour with the lowest expected cost for customers that will require a visit with a given probability. There are several proposed algorithms for the homogeneous version of the problem, where all customers have identical probability of being realized. From the literature, the most successful approaches involve local search procedures, with the most famous being the 2-p-opt and 1-shift procedures proposed by Bertsimas [D.J. Bertsimas, L. Howell, Further results on the probabilistic traveling salesman problem, European Journal of Operational Research 65 (1) (1993) 68–95]. Recently, however, evidence has emerged that indicates the equations offered for these procedures are not correct, and even when corrected, the translation to the heterogeneous version of the problem is not simple. In this paper we extend the analysis and correction to the heterogeneous case. We derive new expressions for computing the cost of 2-p-opt and 1-shift local search moves, and we show that the neighborhood of a solution may be explored in O(n²) time, the same as for the homogeneous case, instead of O(n³) as first reported in the literature.     

Designing delivery districts for the vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands

This paper considers the problem of designing districts for vehicle routing problems with stochastic demands. In particular, demands are assumed to be uncertain at the time when the districts are made, and these are revealed only after the districting decisions are determined. Tabu search and multistart heuristics for this stochastic districting problem are developed and compared. Computational results show that tabu search is superior over multistart.     

Structure-reversibility and departure functions of queueing networks with batch movements and state dependent routing

We consider characterizations of departure functions in Markovian queueing networks with batch movements and state-dependent routing in discrete-time and in continuous-time. For this purpose, the notion of structure-reversibility is introduced, which means that the time-reversed dynamics of a queueing network corresponds with the same type of queueing network. The notion is useful to derive a traffic equation. We also introduce a multi-source model, which means that there are different types of outside sources, to capture a wider range of applications. Characterizations of the departure functions are obtained for any routing mechanism of customers satisfying a recurrent condition. These results give a unified view to queueing network models with linear traffic equations. Furthermore, they enable us to consider new examples as well as show limited usages of this kind of queueing networks. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.