New heuristic and evolutionary operators for the multi-objective urban transit routing problem

The urban transit routing problem (UTRP) involves finding efficient routes in a public transport system. However, developing effective heuristics and metaheuristics for the UTRP is hugely challenging because of the vast search space and multiple constraints that make even the attainment of feasible results exceedingly difficult, as the problem size increases. Moreover, progress with academic research on the UTRP appears to be seriously hampered by: 1) a lack of benchmark data, and 2) the complex and diverse range of methods used in the literature to evaluate solution quality. It is not currently possible for researchers to effectively compare the performance of their algorithms with anyone else's. This paper presents new problem-specific genetic operators within a multi-objective evolutionary framework, and furthermore proposes an effective and efficient heuristic method for seeding the population with feasible route sets. In addition new data sets are provided and made available for download, to aid future researchers. Excellent results are presented for Mandl's problem, which is currently the only benchmark available, while the results obtained for the new data sets provide a challenge for future researchers to beat

An Improved Multi-objective Algorithm for the Urban Transit Routing Problem

The determination of efficient routes and schedules in public transport systems is complex due to the vast search space and multi- ple constraints involved. In this paper we focus on the Urban Transit Routing Problem concerned with the physical network design of pub- lic transport systems. Historically, route planners have used their local knowledge coupled with simple guidelines to produce network designs. Several major studies have identified the need for automated tools to aid in the design and evaluation of public transport networks. We propose a new construction heuristic used to seed a multi-objective evolutionary al- gorithm. Several problem specific mutation operators are then combined with an NSGAII framework leading to improvements upon previously published results

Dynamic approach to solve the daily drayage problem with travel time uncertainty

The intermodal transport chain can become more e cient by means of a good organization of drayage movements. Drayage in intermodal container terminals involves the pick up and delivery of containers at customer locations, and the main objective is normally the assignment of transportation tasks to the di erent vehicles, often with the presence of time windows. This scheduling has traditionally been done once a day and, under these conditions, any unexpected event could cause timetable delays. We propose to use the real-time knowledge about vehicle position to solve this problem, which permanently allows the planner to reassign tasks in case the problem conditions change. This exact knowledge of the position of the vehicles is possible using a geographic positioning system by satellite (GPS, Galileo, Glonass), and the results show that this additional data can be used to dynamically improve the solution

Differential evolution for urban transit routing problem

The urban transit routing problem (UTRP) involves the construction of route sets on existing road networks to cater for the transit demand efficiently. This is an NP-hard problem, where the generation of candidate route sets can lead to a number of potential routes being discarded on the grounds of infeasibility. This paper presents a new repair mechanism to complement the existing terminal repair and the make-small-change operators in dealing with the infeasibility of the candidate route set. When solving the UTRP, the general aim is to determine a set of transit route networks that achieves a minimum total cost for both the passenger and the operator. With this in mind, we propose a differential evolution (DE) algorithm for solving the UTRP with a specific objective of minimizing the average travel time of all served passengers. Computational experiments are performed on the basis of benchmark Mandl’s Swiss network. Computational results from the proposed repair mechanism are comparable with the existing repair mechanisms. Furthermore, the combined repair mechanisms of all three operators produced very promising results. In addition, the proposed DE algorithm outperformed most of the published results in the literature

Genetic algorithm for biobjective urban transit routing problem

This paper considers solving a biobjective urban transit routing problem with a genetic algorithm approach. The objectives are to minimize the passengers’ and operators’ costs where the quality of the route sets is evaluated by a set of parameters. The proposed algorithm employs an adding-node procedure which helps in converting an infeasible solution to a feasible solution. A simple yet effective route crossover operator is proposed by utilizing a set of feasibility criteria to reduce the possibility of producing an infeasible network. The computational results from Mandl’s benchmark problems are compared with other published results in the literature and the computational experiments show that the proposed algorithm performs better than the previous best published results in most cases

A satellite navigation system to improve the management of intermodal drayage

The intermodal transport chain can become more efficient by means of a good organization of the drayage movements. Drayage in intermodal container terminals involves the pick up or delivery of containers at customer locations, and the main objective is normally the assignment of transportation tasks to the different vehicles, often with the presence of time windows. The literature shows some works on centralised drayage management, but most of them consider the problem only from a static and deterministic perspective, whereas the work we present here incorporates the knowledge of the real-time position of the vehicles, which permanently enables the planner to reassign tasks in case the problem conditions change. This exact knowledge of position of the vehicles is possible thanks to a geographic positioning system by satellite (GPS, Galileo, Glonass), and the results show that this additional data can be used to dynamically improve the solution

Urban Transit Network Design Problems: A Review of Population-based Metaheuristics

The urban transit network design problem (UTNDP) involves the development of a transit route set and associated schedules for an urban public transit system. The design of efficient public transit systems is widely considered as a viable option for the economic, social, and physical structure of an urban setting. This paper reviews four well-known population-based metaheuristics that have been employed and deemed potentially viable for tackling the UTNDP. The aim is to give a thorough review of the algorithms and identify the gaps for future research directions

Workload Equity in Vehicle Routing Problems: A Survey and Analysis

Over the past two decades, equity aspects have been considered in a growing number of models and methods for vehicle routing problems (VRPs). Equity concerns most often relate to fairly allocating workloads and to balancing the utilization of resources, and many practical applications have been reported in the literature. However, there has been only limited discussion about how workload equity should be modeled in VRPs, and various measures for optimizing such objectives have been proposed and implemented without a critical evaluation of their respective merits and consequences. This article addresses this gap with an analysis of classical and alternative equity functions for biobjective VRP models. In our survey, we review and categorize the existing literature on equitable VRPs. In the analysis, we identify a set of axiomatic properties that an ideal equity measure should satisfy, collect six common measures, and point out important connections between their properties and those of the resulting Pareto-optimal solutions. To gauge the extent of these implications, we also conduct a numerical study on small biobjective VRP instances solvable to optimality. Our study reveals two undesirable consequences when optimizing equity with nonmonotonic functions: Pareto-optimal solutions can consist of non-TSP-optimal tours, and even if all tours are TSP optimal, Pareto-optimal solutions can be workload inconsistent, i.e. composed of tours whose workloads are all equal to or longer than those of other Pareto-optimal solutions. We show that the extent of these phenomena should not be underestimated. The results of our biobjective analysis are valid also for weighted sum, constraint-based, or single-objective models. Based on this analysis, we conclude that monotonic equity functions are more appropriate for certain types of VRP models, and suggest promising avenues for further research.Comment: Accepted Manuscrip

A bi-objective turning restriction design problem in urban road networks

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A large neighbourhood based heuristic for two-echelon routing problems

In this paper, we address two optimisation problems arising in the context of city logistics and two-level transportation systems. The two-echelon vehicle routing problem and the two-echelon location routing problem seek to produce vehicle itineraries to deliver goods to customers, with transits through intermediate facilities. To efficiently solve these problems, we propose a hybrid metaheuristic which combines enumerative local searches with destroy-and-repair principles, as well as some tailored operators to optimise the selections of intermediate facilities. We conduct extensive computational experiments to investigate the contribution of these operators to the search performance, and measure the performance of the method on both problem classes. The proposed algorithm finds the current best known solutions, or better ones, for 95% of the two-echelon vehicle routing problem benchmark instances. Overall, for both problems, it achieves high-quality solutions within short computing times. Finally, for future reference, we resolve inconsistencies between different versions of benchmark instances, document their differences, and provide them all online in a unified format