Dynamic vehicle routing problems: Three decades and counting

Since the late 70s, much research activity has taken place on the class of dynamic vehicle routing problems (DVRP), with the time period after year 2000 witnessing a real explosion in related papers. Our paper sheds more light into work in this area over more than 3 decades by developing a taxonomy of DVRP papers according to 11 criteria. These are (1) type of problem, (2) logistical context, (3) transportation mode, (4) objective function, (5) fleet size, (6) time constraints, (7) vehicle capacity constraints, (8) the ability to reject customers, (9) the nature of the dynamic element, (10) the nature of the stochasticity (if any), and (11) the solution method. We comment on technological vis-à-vis methodological advances for this class of problems and suggest directions for further research. The latter include alternative objective functions, vehicle speed as decision variable, more explicit linkages of methodology to technological advances and analysis of worst case or average case performance of heuristics.© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

A solution for a real-time stochastic capacitated vehicle routing problem with time windows

Real-time distribution planning presents major difficulties when applied to large problems. Commonly, this planning is associated to the capacitated vehicle routing problem with time windows (CVRPTW), deeply studied in the literature. In this paper we propose an optimization system developed to be integrated with an existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) without causing major disruption to the current distribution process of a company. The proposed system includes: a route optimization module, a module implementing the communications within and to the outside of the system, a non-relational database to provide local storage of information relevant to the optimization procedure, and a cartographic subsystem. The proposed architecture is able to deal with dynamic problems included in the specification of the project, namely: arrival of new orders while already optimizing as well as locking and closing of routes by the system administrator. A back-office graphical interface was also implemented and some results are presented

Routing Applications in Newspaper Delivery

-The goal of this report is to give an up-to-date account of routing applications in the newspaper business. We describe the newspaper supply chain, and focus on the “last mile” distribution that has been advocated as an application of arc routing in the literature. A literature survey is provided, followed by a discussion of the arc routing model and its adequacy to newspaper applications. A more general and normally more adequate model: The Node, Edge, and Arc Routing Problem, is discussed. Characteristics of routing problems in carrier delivery are presented, together with a case study from the development of a web-based route design and revision system. Finally, summary, conclusions, and prospects for the future are given

Achieving Energy Efficiency on Networking Systems with Optimization Algorithms and Compressed Data Structures

To cope with the increasing quantity, capacity and energy consumption of transmission and routing equipment in the Internet, energy efficiency of communication networks has attracted more and more attention from researchers around the world. In this dissertation, we proposed three methodologies to achieve energy efficiency on networking devices: the NP-complete problems and heuristics, the compressed data structures, and the combination of the first two methods. We first consider the problem of achieving energy efficiency in Data Center Networks (DCN). We generalize the energy efficiency networking problem in data centers as optimal flow assignment problems, which is NP-complete, and then propose a heuristic called CARPO, a correlation-aware power optimization algorithm, that dynamically consolidate traffic flows onto a small set of links and switches in a DCN and then shut down unused network devices for power savings. We then achieve energy efficiency on Internet routers by using the compressive data structure. A novel data structure called the Probabilistic Bloom Filter (PBF), which extends the classical bloom filter into the probabilistic direction, so that it can effectively identify heavy hitters with a small memory foot print to reduce energy consumption of network measurement. To achieve energy efficiency on Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), we developed one data collection protocol called EDAL, which stands for Energy-efficient Delay-aware Lifetime-balancing data collection. Based on the Open Vehicle Routing problem, EDAL exploits the topology requirements of Compressive Sensing (CS), then implement CS to save more energy on sensor nodes

Disaster recovery heuristic

A need exists to develop a software simulation that demonstrates the most effective methods of evacuation for disaster scenarios. In a real-world situation this heuristic coupled with real-time data gathered by sensors could serve to provide an efficient rescue plan. Data gathered about the terrain in the immediate aftermath of the situation is invaluable in deciding a plan of action. With this type of information many different routes can be planned so that recovery or rescue can be made as optimal as possible. But of course in any rescue mission speed also is of the utmost importance. This is why we must explore heuristics that make the processing of the collected data faster. The result of this processing must be dependable and must significantly enhance the success of the rescue mission. This work proposes such a heuristic. The results obtained from this heuristic is compared with the results obtained from a process that best mimics an ad-hoc retrieval. Keeping in mind that human ingenuity can never be replaced, in this thesis we create a heuristic that will render a reliable plan of action yielding more predictable results in a disaster recovery situation. Here optimum retrieval means an act of recovery or restoration from any terrain in the most efficient way. Such a process of recovery is very useful when faced with a disaster scenario such as a hurricane or a manmade calamity on a large scale