Transportation Service Network Design: Models and Algorithms

Abstract

We focus on the problem of large scale service network design for transportation carriers requiring the determination of the cost minimizing or profit maximizing set of transportation services and their schedules, given resource constraints. Examples include determining the set of flights and their schedules for an airline; determining the routing and scheduling of tractors and trailers in a trucking operation; and jointly determining the aircraft flights, ground vehicle and package routes and schedules for a provider of express shipment service. In this paper, we survey network design literature, and present a general modeling framework and solution approach for large-scale transportation service network design.