Decision Support in Transportation Logistics in Summer Term 2021

General Content

This lecture is about fleet deployment problems and techniques to support decision-making in the context of vehicle routing. First, we discuss mathematical optimization models for typical fleet deployment scenarios and apply linear programming techniques to identify the best possible fleet deployment decisions for small networks. For larger networks found in the practical applications, we introduce special heuristic algorithms as basic support methods. Besides the derivation of optimal vehicle paths and routes, we address the integration of electronic maps into the decision-making process for merging decision-making algorithms and real-world data.

You will use the software library VRP++ as the basic tool to process fleet deployment problems. VRP++ in a C++ - extension designed to support the implementation and evaluation of vehicle routing algorithms. In particular, you apply VRP++ in a homework assignment.

Your Expected Knowledge Acquired Prior to this Course

We expect that you have visited successfully the lecture "Operations Research and Logistics". Furthermore, we expect that you are familiar with the C++ programming language. In addition, your skills must comprise insights into an algebraic modeling environment like GAMS or IBM CPLEX OPL. Finally, experience with Excel is needed.