01122036

Component

In this paper, the authors will study the hub location problem as well as the service frequency determination for the rail and truck freight transportation network. The objectives consist of two interrelated parts: (a) determining the optimal number and locations of the hub nodes; (b) determining the service frequencies for different transportation modes between the hubs to achieve the economic and service goal. Nodes of the freight transportation network are classified into hubs (or hub nodes) and feeding nodes, correspondingly, the arcs consist of feeding arcs and spoke arcs. The authors change topology of the original network to convert the hub location problem to a capacitated minimum spanning tree problem (CMST) and employ the very large-scale neighborhood search (VLSN) approach to solve it. After ensuring the optimal hub number and their locations, the authors calculate the cumulative freight demand matrix between hubs, set the arcs included in the minimum transportation cost paths as the spoke arcs, then execute an all-or-nothing transportation assignment on the hubs-spokes network. The service frequencies of rail and truck modes are determined based on the assigned flows of spoke arcs. The proposed formulations are tested by an experimental rail and truck freight transportation network with 89 nodes and 142 arcs. The results display the robustness of the VLSN algorithm, and the optimal hubs and service frequencies on spoke arcs are determined efficiently.

01120148

09-2454

English

23p

2009

Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting

DVD

Figures; Maps; References (22) ; Tables (2)

Algorithms; Freight traffic; Hubs; Railroad transportation; Transportation modes; Truck loading facilities; Truck traffic; Trucking

Capacitated minimum spanning tree

Economics; Freight Transportation; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Railroads; I10: Economics and Administration

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2009 Paper #09-2454

TRIS, TRB

Jan 30 2009 6:49PM