Vehicle Routing under Uncertainty

In this thesis, the main focus is on the study of a real-world transportation problem with uncertainties, and on the comparison of a centralized and a distributed solution approach in the context of this problem. We formalize the real-world problem, and provide a general framework to extend it with different sources of uncertainty. We apply...

Using simulation to evaluate how multi-agent transportation planners cope with truck breakdowns

In most real-world settings, a transportation plan requires modifications during execution. A thorough evaluation of transportation planning methods thus requires testing and comparison in a dynamic environment. We give conditions on a simulation environment that follow from this requirement, and propose a multi-agent simulator meeting these...

MIPLIB Truckload PDPTW Instances Derived from a Real-World Drayage Case

This paper describes five sets of 33 Mixed Integer Problem instances each, for a total of 165 instances, derived from a real-world full-truckload pick-up and delivery problem with time windows at the Port of Rotterdam. These instances represent 33 individual days of data encompassing 65 jobs and 40 trucks. We report, in this paper, on the...

Can agents measure up? A comparative study of an agent-based and on-line optimization approach for a drayage problem with uncertainty

Experiments studying the behavior of agent based methods over varying levels of uncertainty in comparison to traditional optimization methods are generally absent from the literature. In this paper we apply two structurally distinct solution approaches, an on-line optimization and an agent based approach, to a drayage problem with time windows...

Agent Performance in Vehicle Routing when the Only Thing Certain is Uncertainty (extended abstract)

In this paper we investigate whether a distributed agent-based planning approach indeed suffers less from job arrival uncertainty than a centralized optimization-based approach. In order to compare the two different approaches, we use the best available algorithms for both sides.

A Qualitative Vickrey Auction

The negative conclusions of the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem|that only dictatorial social choice functions are non-manipulable|can be overcome by restricting the class of admissible preference profiles. A common approach is to assume that the preferences of the agents can be represented by quasilinear utility functions. This restriction allows...

Agent Performance in Vehicle Routing when the Only Thing Certain is Uncertainty

While intermodal transport has the potential to introduce efficiency to the transport network, this transport environment also suffers from a lot of uncertainty at the interface of modes. For example, trucks moving containers to and from a port terminal are often uncertain as to when exactly their container will be released from the ship, from...

Auctions with Arbitrary Deals

To come to a deal, a bargaining process can sometimes take a long time. An auction may be a faster, but existing auction models cannot cope with situations where money is not an issue, or where it is difficult to express the utility of all participants in a monetary domain. We propose a modified Vickrey auction based only on preferences over the...

Incorporating Expert Knowledge in Decision Support for Logistics: Balancing Costs and Customer Relations

Decision support within transport companies should not only use traditional objective functions, but also reason about qualitative effects on all involved actors. We propose a fuzzy logic rule base that can be used in addition to traditional operation research tools to calculate not just optimal solutions, but solutions that are optimal with...

Multi-Attribute Vickrey Auctions when Utility Functions are Unknown

Multi-attribute auctions allow negotiations over multiple attributes besides price. For example in task allocation, service providers can define their service by means of multiple attributes, such as quality of service, deadlines, or delay penalties. Auction mechanisms assume that the players have evaluation functions over the space of...

Distributed Agent Platform for advanced logistics