Presenter: Alberto Marcolongo

Title: The Competitive Two-Echelon Location Routing Problem

Main supervisor: Marcel Turkensteen

Discussant: Jesper Bang Mikkelsen

Abstract: 

This seminar presents the competitive two-echelon location routing problem in which location and routing decisions are optimized simultaneously in a two-echelon framework under competitive pressure. 

The challenge in this problem is that the customer set to be served depends on our choice of facilities and their interaction with the competitors’ facilities. To model the problem, we adapt a two-echelon location routing problem formulation with an exponential number of constraints. Such a formulation guarantees a tight linear relaxation, and we solve it via a logic-based Benders decomposition approach that leverages its exponential number of constraints. Preliminary computational experiments indicate that our algorithm outperforms commercial solvers’ internal procedures, with small- and medium-sized instances solved to optimality.

This presentation is also part of Alberto's mandatory 1st year presentations for PhD students. 

Organisers: Surabhi Verma and Hartanto Wong