EURO 2025 Leeds
Abstract Submission

709. Robust Service Network Design under Uncertain Travel Times

Invited abstract in session TC-17: Service Network Design: challenges and opportunities, stream Combinatorial Optimization.

Tuesday, 12:30-14:00
Room: Esther Simpson 2.08

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Giacomo Lanza
Computer Science, University of Pisa
2. Maria Grazia Scutellà
Informatica, Universita' di Pisa
3. Mauro Passacantando
Department of Business and Law, University of Milano-Bicocca

Abstract

Service network design is a fundamental problem that freight carriers face at the tactical level when planning a consolidation-based transportation network. The objective is to define a transportation plan - including the selection and scheduling of services as well as routing policies for freight - that meets estimated demand while achieving the carrier’s economic and service quality targets. However, uncertainty in the system (e.g., demand or travel times fluctuations) poses a significant challenge in decision-making, impacting both operations and service reliability, potentially leading to additional costs.
In this work, we propose a robust formulation of the problem that explicitly accounts for uncertainty in travel times. The goal is to determine a cost-efficient transportation plan that ensures selected services operate as scheduled and freight arrives at its destination within the agreed-upon delivery time, even under worst-case travel time scenarios defined within a given uncertainty set.
We present a min-max mathematical formulation for this robust optimization problem and an implementor-adversary resolution approach, based on the proposed formulation. We discuss preliminary computational results on medium-sized instances, aiming to assess the algorithm’s efficiency, and examine the structural differences between robust and deterministic solutions.

Keywords

Status: accepted

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