School bus selection, routing and scheduling.

The aim of this thesis is to develop formulations and exact algorithms for the school bus routing and scheduling problem and to develop an integrated software implementation using Xpress-MP/CPLEX and ArcGIS of ESRI, a geographical information system software package. In this thesis, bus flow, single commodity flow, two-commodity flow, multi-commodity flow, and time window formulations have been developed. They capture all of the important elements of the School Bus Routing and Scheduling Problem (SBRSP) including homogeneous or heterogeneous bus fleets, the identification of bus stops from a large set of potential bus stops, and the assignment of students to stops and stops to routes. They allow for the one stop-one bus and one stop-multi bus scenarios. Each formulation of the SBRSP has a linear programming relaxation and we present the relationships among them. We present a Branch-and-Cut exact algorithm which makes use of new linearization techniques, new valid inequalities, and the first valid equalities. We develop an integrated software package that is based on Geographical Information System (GIS) map-based interface, linking to an Xpress-MP/CPLEX solver. The interface between GIS and Xpress-MP is written in VBA and VC++.Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2005 .K4. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-11, Section: B, page: 6250. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2005

Contemporary Approaches to the Solution of the Integer Programming Problem

The purpose of this thesis is to provide analysis of the modem development of the methods for solution to the integer linear programming problem. The thesis simultaneously discusses some main approaches that lead to the development of the algorithms for the solution to the integer linear programming problem. Chapter 1 introduces the Generalized Linear Programming Problem alongside with the properties of a solution to the Linear Programming Problem. The simplex procedure presented to solve the Linear Programming Problem by adding slack variables along with the artificial-basis technique. Chapter 2 refers to the primal-dual simplex procedure. The dual simplex algorithm reflects the dual simplex procedure. Chapter 3 discusses the mixed and alternative formulations of the integer programming problem. Chapter 4 considers the optimality conditions with the imposed relaxations to solve the Linear Programming Relaxation Problem. The methods of the Integer Programming are introduced for the Linear Programming Relaxation. Chapter 5 discusses the concepts of the Branch-and Bound method followed by the direct application of the Branch-and-Bound method. Chapter 6 introduces the fundamental concepts of the cutting method. The main concept of the valid inequalities presented for the Linear Programming Problem as well as for the Integer Programming Problem. Gomory\u27s Fractional cutting plane Algorithm represents the desired step to obtain the solution for the Integer Programming Problem. Furthermore, the mixed integer cuts generalizes the concepts to provide the corresponding solution for the Integer Programming Problem. Chapter 7 describes the Gomory method for the pure Integer Program followed by the Gomory method for the mixed Integer Program. In the Appendix the computer program LINDO is used. Throughout the whole thesis this computer program is applied to emphasize the very helpful tool in Linear Programming. All above mentioned chapters include the variety of examples corresponding to the Linear Programming Problem and the Integer Program

Models for multi-depot routing problems

In this dissertation we study two problems. In the first part of the dissertation we study the multi-depot routing problem. In the multi-depot routing problem we are given a set of depots and a set of clients and the objective is to find a set of routes with minimum total cost, one for each depot, such that each route starts and ends at the same depot and all clients are visited in one and only one route. The requirement that routes must start and end at the same depot is modeled by so-called path elimination constraints. We present a formulation which includes a newly developed set of multi-cut path elimination constraints and a branch-and-cut algorithm based on the new formulation that it is able to solve both asymmetric and symmetric instances with up to 300 clients and 60 depots. Additionally, we present other approaches to model path elimination constraints, including a formulation which provides linear programming relaxation values which are close to the optimal value in the instances tested. In the second part of the dissertation we study the Hamiltonian p-median problem. In the Hamiltonian p-median we are given a set of nodes and the objective is to find p circuits with minimum total cost such that each node is in one and only circuit. We propose a formulation based on the concept of acting depot which attributes the role of artificial depot to p of the nodes. This formulation is a non-straightforward adaptation of the new model proposed for the multidepot routing problem and it is based on a novel idea in which the standard arc variables are split into three cases depending on whether none or exactly one of its endpoints is an acting depot. We present a branch-and-cut algorithm based on the new formulation which is able to solve asymmetric instances with up to 171 nodes and symmetric instances with up to 100 nodes.Programa de Bolsas de Doutoramento da Universidade de Lisbo

Heuristic Solutions for Loading in Flexible Manufacturing Systems

Production planning in flexible manufacturing system deals with the efficient organization of the production resources in order to meet a given production schedule. It is a complex problem and typically leads to several hierarchical subproblems that need to be solved sequentially or simultaneously. Loading is one of the planning subproblems that has to addressed. It involves assigning the necessary operations and tools among the various machines in some optimal fashion to achieve the production of all selected part types. In this paper, we first formulate the loading problem as a 0-1 mixed integer program and then propose heuristic procedures based on Lagrangian relaxation and tabu search to solve the problem. Computational results are presented for all the algorithms and finally, conclusions drawn based on the results are discussed

Combinatorial Path Planning for a System of Multiple Unmanned Vehicles

In this dissertation, the problem of planning the motion of m Unmanned Vehicles (UVs) (or simply vehicles) through n points in a plane is considered. A motion plan for a vehicle is given by the sequence of points and the corresponding angles at which each point must be visited by the vehicle. We require that each vehicle return to the same initial location(depot) at the same heading after visiting the points. The objective of the motion planning problem is to choose at most q(≤ m) UVs and find their motion plans so that all the points are visited and the total cost of the tours of the chosen vehicles is a minimum amongst all the possible choices of vehicles and their tours. This problem is a generalization of the wellknown Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) in many ways: (1) each UV takes the role of salesman (2) motion constraints of the UVs play an important role in determining the cost of travel between any two locations; in fact, the cost of the travel between any two locations depends on direction of travel along with the heading at the origin and destination, and (3) there is an additional combinatorial complexity stemming from the need to partition the points to be visited by each UV and the set of UVs that must be employed by the mission. In this dissertation, a sub-optimal, two-step approach to motion planning is presented to solve this problem:(1) the combinatorial problem of choosing the vehicles and their associated tours is based on Euclidean distances between points and (2) once the sequence of points to be visited is specified, the heading at each point is determined based on a Dynamic Programming scheme. The solution to the first step is based on a generalization of Held-Karp’s method. We modify the Lagrangian heuristics for finding a close sub-optimal solution. In the later chapters of the dissertation, we relax the assumption that all vehicles are homogenous. The motivation of heterogenous variant of Multi-depot, Multiple Traveling Salesmen Problem (MDMTSP) derives form applications involving Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or ground robots requiring multiple vehicles with different capabilities to visit a set of locations