New Modeling and Solution Paradigms for Transportation Problems with Applications to Railroads

运输问题的新建模和解决方案及其在铁路中的应用

• 批准号: 1200616
• 负责人: Jean-Philippe Richard
• 金额: $ 23.31万
• 依托单位: University of Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-05-15 至 2017-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1200616&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: New; Modeling; Solution; Paradigms; Transportation

To provide services, industries and the government rely heavily on their ability to efficiently transport goods. In their simplest form, transportation problems can be solved efficiently using traditional optimization algorithms. However, practical applications often exhibit a variety of additional combinatorial requirements that necessitate involved modeling, often in the form of integer programs. This modeling is often seen as unnatural by practitioners and results in models that are difficult to solve with state-of-the-art commercial software. The research objective of this award is to develop a new modeling and solution paradigm for such transportation problems. In this paradigm, a few key constructs are identified that allow the user to succinctly impose often-occurring combinatorial constraints without the need to formulate them using integer programming. These constructs can then be exploited to design more efficient exact and heuristic solution methodologies that take advantage of the structure of the network and of the combinatorial requirements. The research will also seek to demonstrate the advantages of this paradigm on practical problems emanating from bulk delivery in railroads. If successful, this research will result in an integrated modeling and solution paradigm that will provide faster solutions to larger transportation problems and that will bring within the range of tractability many practically relevant problems that are currently intractable. It will lead to solutions where transportation costs and miles are reduced and will therefore improve the efficiency of industries relying on transportation. Results will be disseminated timely via conferences, publications and a dedicated internet page that will contain relevant models, stylized applications and prototype implementations. Undergraduate and graduate students will also benefit from this award through the development of course material and involvement in research.

为了提供服务，工业和政府在很大程度上依赖于他们有效运输货物的能力。在最简单的形式中，运输问题可以使用传统的优化算法有效地解决。然而，实际的应用程序往往表现出各种额外的组合要求，需要涉及的建模，往往是整数规划的形式。这种建模通常被实践者视为不自然的，并且导致难以用最先进的商业软件解决的模型。该奖项的研究目标是为此类交通问题开发新的建模和解决方案范例。在这个范例中，确定了一些关键的结构，允许用户简洁地施加经常发生的组合约束，而不需要制定它们使用整数规划。然后，这些结构可以被利用来设计更有效的精确和启发式的解决方案的方法，利用网络的结构和组合的要求。 该研究还将寻求证明这种范式在解决铁路散装运输产生的实际问题方面的优势。如果成功的话，这项研究将导致一个集成的建模和解决方案的范例，将提供更快的解决方案，以更大的运输问题，并将在可处理的范围内，目前棘手的许多实际相关的问题。它将导致解决方案，减少运输成本和里程，从而提高依赖运输的行业的效率。将通过会议、出版物和一个专门的互联网网页及时传播成果，该网页将载有相关模型、程式化应用程序和原型实施。本科生和研究生也将通过课程材料的开发和参与研究从这个奖项中受益。