Polytechnique Montr�al et CIRRELT
July 20, 2016, 14:30, Room GC B2 424 (click here for the map)
The term "Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problems" (DVRP) refers to the large class of vehicle routing problems in which problem data is not completely available when the solution process is initiated and where solution determination (i.e., computation) and solution execution by the vehicles are (at least, partially) concurrent. This class of problems covers, in particular, routing problems in which customer demands arrive over a long period of time during which the vehicles are already under way to serve some requests. A typical example of this situation occurs in the area of express courier services. While classical, static Vehicle Routing Problems have now been studied for more than 55 years, the interest for DVRP's started in the late 1970's and has been steadily growing since then, largely due to the emergence of technological innovations, such as cellular phones, on-board computers, global positioning systems, etc. This has led to the development of various models and solution approaches that are able to solve effectively dynamic problems in a large variety of settings. In this talk, we will first review the main concepts relevant to the definition, analysis, and solution of DVRP's. Among other things, we will explain the differences and similarities between DVRP's and Stochastic Vehicle Routing Problems. We will then survey the most important application areas and the main solution methods that have been proposed for DVRP's. The last part of the talk will be devoted to a discussion of the research avenues that the recent developments in Big Data technologies are opening.
Michel Gendreau is Department Chair and Professor of Operations Research at the Department of Mathematics and Industrial Engineering of Polytechnique Montreal (Canada). He received both his M.Sc. and his Ph.D. degrees from University of Montreal. His main research area is the application of operations research methods to transportation and logistics systems planning and operation. Dr. Gendreau has published around 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He is also the co-editor of six books dealing with transportation planning and scheduling, as well as with metaheuristics. Dr. Gendreau was the Director of the Centre for Research on Transportation (formerly CRT and now CIRRELT) from 1999 to 2007. He completed his 6-year term as Editor in chief of Transportation Science at the end of 2014. In 2001, he received the Merit Award of the Canadian Operational Research Society in recognition of his contributions to the development of O.R. in Canada. He was elected Fellow of INFORMS in 2010. In 2015, Dr. Gendreau received the prestigious Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award of the Transportation Science & Logistics Society of INFORMS.