90-XX OPERATIONS RESEARCH, MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING
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The planning of a communication network is inevitably depending on the quality of both the planning tool and the demand forecast used. In this article, we show exemplarily how the emerging area of Robust Optimization can advance the network planning by a more accurate mathematical description of the demand uncertainty. After a general introduction of the concept and its application to a basic network design problem, we present two applications: multi-layer and mixed-line-rate network design. We conclude with a discussion of extensions of the robustness concept to increase the accuracy of handling uncertainties.
A common technique in the solution of large or complex optimization problems is the use of micro-macro transformations. In this paper, we carry out a theoretical analysis of such transformations for the track allocation problem in railway networks. We prove that the cumulative rounding technique of Schlechte et al. satisfies two of three natural optimality criteria and that this performance cannot be improved. We also show that under extreme circumstances, this technique can perform inconvieniently by underestimating the global optimal value.
The rapid technological evolution of telecommunication networks demands service providers to regularly update their technology, with the aim of remaining competitive in the marketplace. However, upgrading the technology in a network is not a trivial task. New hardware components need to be installed in the network and during the installation network connectivity may be temporarily compromised. The Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology, whose upgrade is considered in here, shares fiber links among several optical connections and tearing down a single link may disrupt several optical connections at once. When the upgrades involve large parts of a network, typically not all links can be upgraded in parallel, which may lead to an unavoidable longer disruption of some connections. A bad scheduling of the overall endeavor, however, can dramatically increase the disconnection time of parts of the networks, causing extended service disruption. In this contribution, we study the problem of finding a schedule of the fiber link upgrades that minimizes the total service disruption time. To the best of our knowledge, this problem has not yet been formalized and investigated. The aim of our work is to close this gap by presenting a mathematical optimization model for the problem and an innovative solution algorithm that tackles the intrinsic difficulties of the problem. Computational experience on realistic instances completes our study. Our original investigations have been driven by real needs of DFN, operator of the German National Research and Education Network and our partner in the BMBF research project ROBUKOM (http://www.robukom.de/).
We consider the following freight train routing problem (FTRP). Given is a
transportation network with fixed routes for passenger trains and a
set of freight trains (requests), each defined by an origin and
destination station pair. The objective is to calculate a feasible
route for each freight train such that a sum of all expected delays and
all running times is minimal. Previous research concentrated on
microscopic train routings for junctions or inside major stations. Only
recently approaches were developed to tackle larger corridors or even
networks. We investigate the routing problem from a strategic
perspective, calculating the routes in a macroscopic transportation
network of Deutsche Bahn AG. Here macroscopic refers to an aggregation of
complex real-world structures are into fewer network elements. Moreover, the
departure and arrival times of freight trains are approximated.
The problem has a strategic
character since it asks only for a coarse routing through the network
without the precise timings. We give a mixed-integer nonlinear programming~(MINLP)
formulation for FTRP, which is a multi-commodity flow model on a time-expanded
graph with additional routing constraints. The model's nonlinearities are due to
an algebraic approximation of the delays of the trains on the arcs of
the network
by capacity restraint functions. The MINLP is reduced to a mixed-integer linear model~(MILP)
by piecewise linear approximation. The latter is solved by a state of the art MILP solver for various real-world test instances.
The Rolling Stock Rotation Problem is to schedule rail vehicles in order to cover timetabled trips by a cost optimal set of vehicle rotations. The problem integrates several facets of railway optimization, i.e., vehicle composition, maintenance constraints, and regularity aspects.
In industrial applications existing schedules often have to be re-optimized to integrate timetable changes or construction sites.
We present an integrated modeling and algorithmic approach for this task as well as computational results for industrial problem instances of DB Fernverkehr AG.
The Scenario Technique is a strategic planning method that aims to describe and analyze potential developments of a considered system in the future. Its application consists of several steps, from an initial problem analysis over an influence analysis to projections of key factors and a definition of the scenarios to a final interpretation of the results. The technique itself combines qualitative and quantitative methods and is an enhancement of the standard Scenario Technique. We use the numerical values gathered during the influence analysis, and embed them in a System Dynamics framework. This yields a mathematically rigorous way to achieve predictions of the system‘s future behavior from an initial impulse and the feedback structure of the factors. The outcome of our new method is a further way of projecting the present into the future, which enables the user of the Scenario Technique to obtain a validation of the results achieved by the standard method.
This thesis represents a game-theoretic investigation of the allocation of inspectors in a transportation network, comparing Nash and Stackelberg equilibrium strategies to a strategy in which inspections are conducted proportionally to the traffic volume. It contains specifications for the integration of space and time dependencies and extensive experimental tests for the application on the transportation network of German motorways using real data. Main results are that - although the formulated spot-checking game is not zero-sum - we are able to compute a Nash equilibrium using linear programming and secondly, that experimental results yield that a Nash equilibrium strategy represents a good trade-off for the Stackelberg equilibrium strategy between efficiency of controls and computation time.
We provide an overview of our main results about studying Linear Programming Problems whose coefficient matrix is subject to uncertainty and the uncertainty is modeled through a multi-band set. Such an uncertainty set generalizes the classical one proposed by Bertsimas and Sim and is particularly suitable in the common case of arbitrary non-symmetric distributions of the parameters. Our investigations were inspired by practical needs of our industrial partner in ongoing projects with focus on the design of robust telecommunications networks.
We provide an overview of new theoretical results that we obtained while further investigating multiband robust optimization, a new model for robust optimization that we recently proposed to tackle uncertainty in mixed-integer linear programming. This new model extends and refines the classical Gamma-robustness model of Bertsimas and Sim and is particularly useful in the common case of arbitrary asymmetric distributions of the uncertainty. Here, we focus on uncertain 0-1 programs and we analyze their robust counterparts when the uncertainty is represented through a multiband set. Our investigations were inspired by the needs of our industrial partners in the research project ROBUKOM.
We investigate the Robust Multiperiod Network Design Problem, a generalization of the classical Capacitated Network Design Problem that additionally considers multiple design periods and provides solutions protected against traffic uncertainty.
Given the intrinsic difficulty of the problem, which proves challenging even for state-of-the art commercial solvers, we propose a hybrid primal heuristic based on the combination of ant colony optimization and an exact large neighborhood search. Computational experiments on a set of realistic instances from the SNDlib show that our heuristic can find solutions of extremely good quality with low optimality gap.