Logistics

Logistics is a huge area that poses a wide range of different optimization problems. It comprises many sub-fields, ranging from classical tasks like the TSP to more general problems that are very constraint and specific to a particular company. I have contributed to many of these fields.

Traveling Salesperson Problem (TSP)

The most classical logistics task is the Traveling Salesperson Problem (TSP), which is one of the most classical NP-hard problems from operations research.

• Tianyu LIANG (梁天宇), Zhize WU (吴志泽), Matthias Thürer, Markus Wagner, and Thomas Weise (汤卫思): Generating Small Instances with Interesting Features for the Traveling Salesperson Problem. International Conference on Evolutionary Computation Theory and Applications (ECTA'2024), part of 16th International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence (IJCCI'2024), November 20-22, 2024, Porto, Portugal, pages 173-180. Setúbal, Portugal: SciTePress.
  TSP, logistics, RLS, FFA, local search, moptipy, Python, more infos.
• Tianyu LIANG (梁天宇), Zhize WU (吴志泽), Jörg Lässig, Daan van den Berg, Sarah Louise Thomson, and Thomas Weise (汤卫思): Addressing the Traveling Salesperson Problem with Frequency Fitness Assignment and Hybrid Algorithms. Soft Computing 28(17-18):9495-9508. September 2024.
  TSP, logistics, RLS, FFA, local search, SA, moptipy, Python, more infos.
• Tianyu LIANG (梁天宇), Zhize WU (吴志泽), Jörg Lässig, Daan van den Berg, and Thomas Weise (汤卫思): Solving the Traveling Salesperson Problem using Frequency Fitness Assignment. IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computational Intelligence (IEEE FOCI'2022), part of the IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI'2022), December 4-7, 2022, Singapore. IEEE.
  TSP, logistics, FFA, local search, RLS, moptipy, Python, more infos.
• Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Yan JIANG (江炎), Qi QI (齐琪), and Weichen LIU (刘伟臣): A Branch-and-Bound-Based Crossover Operator for the Traveling Salesman Problem. International Journal of Cognitive Informatics and Natural Intelligence (IJCINI) 13(3):1-18. Autumn 2019.
  B&B, TSP, logistics, EAs, TSP Suite, more infos.
• Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Yuezhong WU (吴越钟), Weichen LIU (刘伟臣), and Raymond Chiong: Implementation Issues in Optimization Algorithms: Do they matter? Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence (JETAI) 31(4):533-554. 2019.
  TSP, logistics, local search, TSP Suite, benchmarking, more infos.
• Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Zijun WU (吴自军), and Markus Wagner: An Improved Generic Bet-and-Run Strategy with Performance Prediction for Stochastic Local Search. 33rd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI'2019), January 27 - February 1, 2019, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, pages 2395-2402. Palo Alto, CA, USA: AAAI Press.
  TSP, logistics, local search, more infos.
• Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Xiao-Feng WANG (王晓峰), Qi QI (齐琪), Bin LI (李斌), and Ke TANG (唐珂): Automatically discovering clusters of algorithm and problem instance behaviors as well as their causes from experimental data, algorithm setups, and instance features. Applied Soft Computing Journal (ASOC), 73:366–382, December 2018.
  TSP, logistics, benchmarking, optimizationBenchmarking, ACO, EAs, local search, Tabu Search, more infos.
• Markus Ullrich, Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Abhishek Awasthi, and Jörg Lässig: A Generic Problem Instance Generator for Discrete Optimization Problems. Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO'2018) Companion, July 15-19, 2018, Kyoto, Japan, pages 1761-1768 New York, NY, USA: ACM.
  benchmarking, TSP, logistics, more infos.
• Qi QI (齐琪), Thomas Weise (汤卫思), and Bin LI (李斌): Optimization Algorithm Behavior Modeling: A Study on the Traveling Salesman Problem. 10th International Conference on Advanced Computational Intelligence (ICACI'2018), March 29-31, 2018, Xiamen, Fujian, China, IEEE, pages 861-866.
  TSP, TSP Suite, logistics, benchmarking, Tabu Search, more infos.
• Weichen LIU (刘伟臣), Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Yuezhong WU (吴越钟), and Qi QI (齐琪): Combining Two Local Searches with Crossover: An Efficient Hybrid Algorithm for the Traveling Salesman Problem. Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO'2017), July 15-19, 2017, Berlin, Germany, New York, NY, USA: ACM Press, pages 298-305.
  TSP, TSP Suite, logistics, local search, more infos.
• Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Yuezhong WU (吴越钟), Raymond Chiong, Ke TANG (唐珂), and Jörg Lässig: Global versus Local Search: The Impact of Population Sizes on Evolutionary Algorithm Performance. Journal of Global Optimization (JOGO) 66(3):511-534. November 2016.
  TSP Suite, TSP, logistics, EAs, benchmarking, local search, more infos.
• Yuezhong WU (吴越钟), Thomas Weise (汤卫思), and Weichen LIU (刘伟臣): Hybridizing Different Local Search Algorithms with Each Other and Evolutionary Computation: Better Performance on the Traveling Salesman Problem. 18th Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO'2016), Denver, Colorado, USA, July 20-24, 2016, pages 57-58, New York, NY, USA: ACM.
  TSP Suite, TSP, logistics, local search, more infos.
• Weichen LIU (刘伟臣), Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Yuezhong WU (吴越钟), Dan XU (许丹), and Raymond Chiong: An Improved Ejection Chain Method and Its Hybrid Versions for Solving the Traveling Salesman Problem. Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience 13(6):3601-3610. June 2016.
  TSP Suite, TSP, logistics, local search, more infos.
• Dan XU (许丹), Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Yuezhong WU (吴越钟), Jörg Lässig, and Raymond Chiong: An Investigation of Hybrid Tabu Search for the Traveling Salesman Problem. 10th International Conference on Bio-Inspired Computing — Theories and Applications (BIC-TA'2015), September 25-28, 2015, Hefei, Anhui, China, Communications in Computer and Information Science, volume 562. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, pages 523-537.
  TSP, TSP Suite, logistics, Tabu Search, local search, more infos.
• Weichen LIU (刘伟臣), Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Yuezhong WU (吴越钟), and Raymond Chiong: Hybrid Ejection Chain Methods for the Traveling Salesman Problem. 10th International Conference on Bio-Inspired Computing — Theories and Applications (BIC-TA'2015), September 25-28, 2015, Hefei, Anhui, China, Communications in Computer and Information Science, volume 562. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, pages 268-282.
  TSP, TSP Suite, logistics, local search, more infos.
• Yuezhong WU (吴越钟), Thomas Weise (汤卫思), and Raymond Chiong: Local Search for the Traveling Salesman Problem: A Comparative Study. 14th IEEE Conference on Cognitive Informatics & Cognitive Computing (ICCI*CC'2015), July 6-8, 2015, Beijing, China, pages 213-220, Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
  TSP, TSP Suite, logistics, local search, benchmarking, more infos.
• Yan JIANG (江炎), Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Jörg Lässig, Raymond Chiong, and Rukshan Athauda: Comparing a Hybrid Branch and Bound Algorithm with Evolutionary Computation Methods, Local Search and their Hybrids on the TSP. IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Production and Logistics Systems (CIPLS'2014), part of the IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI'2014), December 9-12, 2014, Orlando, FL, USA, pages 148-155. Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
  TSP, TSP Suite, logistics, local search, B&B, EAs, MAs, more infos.
• Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Raymond Chiong, Jörg Lässig, Ke TANG (唐珂), Shigeyoshi Tsutsui, Wenxiang CHEN (陈文祥), Zbigniew Michalewicz, and Xin YAO (姚新): Benchmarking Optimization Algorithms: An Open Source Framework for the Traveling Salesman Problem. IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine (CIM) 9(3):40-52. August 2014.
  TSP, TSP Suite, logistics, local search, EAs, MAs, ACO, EDAs, FFA, more infos.
• Jin OUYANG (欧阳晋), Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Alexandre Devert, and Raymond Chiong: SDGP: A Developmental Approach for Traveling Salesman Problems. IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Production and Logistics Systems (CIPLS'2013), part of the IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI'2013), April 15-19, 2013, Singapore, pages 78-85, Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
  TSP, logistics, GP, more infos.

Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs)

Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) are a much wider task than TSPs. While the TSP aims to route a single vehicle through several locations only considering the total travel distance, VRPs may involve multiple vehicles, time windows for pickup and delivery of goods from locations, capacity constraints, and even different vehicles such as trucks and trains.

• Wei SHI (施玮), Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Raymond Chiong, and Bülent Çatay: Hybrid PACO with Enhanced Pheromone Initialization for Solving the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows. IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Production and Logistics Systems (CIPLS'2015), part of the IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI'2015), December 8-10, 2015, Cape Town, South Africa, pages 1735-1742. Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
  VRP, ACO, logistics, more infos.
• Wei SHI (施玮) and Thomas Weise (汤卫思): An Initialized ACO for the VRPTW. 14th International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning (IDEAL'2013), October 20-23, 2013, Hefei, Anhui, China, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), volume 8206/2013, pages 93-100. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag GmbH.
  ACO, VRP, logistics, more infos.
• Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Alexander Podlich, and Christian Gorldt: Solving Real-World Vehicle Routing Problems with Evolutionary Algorithms. Natural Intelligence for Scheduling, Planning and Packing Problems, chapter 2, pages 29-53, Studies in Computational Intelligence, volume 250. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, October 2009.
  VRP, logistics, EAs, more infos.
• Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Alexander Podlich, Manfred Menze, and Christian Gorldt: Optimierte Güterverkehrsplanung mit Evolutionären Algorithmen. Industrie Management — Zeitschrift für industrielle Geschäftsprozesse 10(3):37-40. June 2009.
  EAs, VRP, logistics, more infos.
• Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Alexander Podlich, Kai Reinhard, Christian Gorldt, and Kurt Geihs: Evolutionary Freight Transportation Planning. Applications of Evolutionary Computing — Proceedings of EvoWorkshops'2009, April 15-17, 2009, Tübingen, Germany: Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), volume 5484/2009, pages 768-777. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag GmbH.
  EAs, VRP, logistics, more infos.
• Alexander Podlich, Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Manfred Menze, and Christian Gorldt: Intelligente Wechselbrückensteuerung für die Logistik von Morgen. Workshops der Wissenschaftlichen Konferenz Kommunikation in Verteilten Systemen (WowKiVS'2009), March 6, 2009, Kassel, Hesse, Germany. In Electronic Communications of the EASST (ECEASST), volume 17, Potsdam, Germany: European Association of Software Science and Technology.
  EAs, VRP, logistics, more infos.

Traveling Tournament Problem (TTP)

The Traveling Tournament Problem (TTP) is special logistics task. Here, the goal is to design tournament plans where teams from different cities visit each other. Each team usually plays every other team twice, once at home and once in the stadium of the other team. The schedule should be both efficient (with a low overall travel distance) and fair (obeying several constraints).

• Xiang CAO (曹翔), Zhize WU (吴志泽), Daan van den Berg, and Thomas Weise (汤卫思): Randomized Local Search vs. NSGA-II vs. Frequency Fitness Assignment on The Traveling Tournament Problem. International Conference on Evolutionary Computation Theory and Applications (ECTA'2024), part of 16th International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence (IJCCI'2024), November 20-22, 2024, Porto, Portugal, pages 38-49. Setúbal, Portugal: SciTePress.
  TTP, logistics, RLS, FRLS, FFA, local search, moptipy, Python, more infos.
• Kristian Verduin, Ruben Horn, Okke van Eck, Reitze Jansen, Thomas Weise (汤卫思), and Daan van den Berg: The Traveling Tournament Problem: Rows-First versus Columns-First. 26th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS'2024), April 28-30, 2024, Angers, France, pages 447-455. Setúbal, Portugal: SciTePress.
  TTP, logistics, GAs, more infos.
• Kristian Verduin, Thomas Weise (汤卫思), and Daan van den Berg: Why is the Traveling Tournament Problem not Solved with Genetic Algorithms? Late-Breaking Abstracts of EvoStar'2023, April 12-14, 2023, Brno, Czech Republic.
  TTP, logistics, GAs, more infos.

Arc Routing Problems

Arc Routing Problems are logistic planning problems where the goal is to find optimal routes for vehicles that need to visit certain streets which require some treatment. In Capacitated Arc Routing Problems (CARPs), the vehicles are initially located at a single depot and have to deliversome product (such as salt or mail) to the roads. This product is available at the depot at a sufficient amount. The vehicles are limited in their capacity, i.e., the amount of product that they can transport. Traversing any road takes a certain time (cost) and the goal is to find tours of minimum cost that satisfy all requirements.

• Thomas Weise (汤卫思), Alexandre Devert, and Ke TANG (唐珂): A Developmental Solution to (Dynamic) Capacitated Arc Routing Problems using Genetic Programming. 14th Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO'2012), July 7-11, 2012, Philadelphia, PA, USA, pages 831-838. New York, NY, USA: ACM.
  CARP, logistics, GP, more infos.