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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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In this talk, we explore trade-offs between flexibility and
complexity in periodic distribution problems. We consider
the gains from operational flexibility in terms of vehicle routing
costs and customer service benefits, along with the costs of
additional complexity in terms of modeling and solution method
requirements and implementation issues. The period vehicle
routing problem (PVRP) is a variation of the classic vehicle
routing problem in which delivery routes must be constructed
over a period of time (for example, multiple days). We introduce
the PVRP with service choice (PVRP-SC) which extends the
PVRP to allow service frequency to become a decision of the
model. We present both exact and heuristic solution methods
for the PVRP with service choice, and we illustrate how the
introduction of service choice impacts modeling and solution
methods. In addition, we investigate broader issues related to the
value of service choice in terms of improvements to operational
efficiency, as well as the complexities of introducing choice into
difficult optimization problems. The talk explores the trade-offs
between the system performance improvements due to operational
flexibility and the resulting increases in computational and
implementation complexity.
