Research

TRANSP-OR: Prem Kumar

Prem Kumar

This page reports only the academic work registered in the databases of the Transport and Mobility Laboratory, and is not necessarily a comprehensive list of the work by Prem Kumar.

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Prem Kumar

International journals

Published

Total: 4

      Papers in conference proceedings

      • Kumar, P., and Bierlaire, M. (2012). Optimizing Locations for a Vehicle Sharing System. Proceedings of the Swiss Transport Research Conference (STRC) 02.05.2012-04.05.2012, 2012.
      • Kumar, P., and Bierlaire, M. (2011). Generalized Airport Gate Assignment. Proceedings of the International Federations of Operations Research (IFORS) 10-15 July 2011, 2011.
      • Kumar, P., and Bierlaire, M. (2011). Experience of Optimizing Fueling Decisions for Locomotives in Railroad Networks. Proceedings of the INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF OPERATIONS RESEARCH (OR2011) 30 AUG - 2 SEP 2011, 2011.
      • Kumar, P., and Bierlaire, M. (2011). Multi-Objective Airport Gate Assignment Problem. Proceedings of the Swiss Transport Research Conference (STRC) 11-13 May 2011, 2011.
      • Kumar, P., and Bierlaire, M. (2010). Optimal Staffing Plans at Airports. Proceedings of the INFORMS Annual Meeting 2010 (INFORMS2010) 7-10, Nov 2010, 2010.
      • Kumar, P., Bierlaire, M., and Gallay, O. (2010). Generalized Algorithms for Crew Planning: Survey and Future Directions for Railways. Proceedings of the 10th Swiss Transport Research Conference (STRC) September 1-3, 2010, 2010.

      Technical reports

      Seminars

      Research projects

      Optimizing Staffing Plans at Airports
      Sponsor: Transport and Mobility Laboratory, EPFL
      Team: Michel Bierlaire (PI), Prem Kumar (PM)
      Period: October 01, 2010-October 01, 2011
      Minimizing operating costs for maintaining ground personnel at airports is a complex problem due to uneven flight activities, passenger service expectations and staffing inflexibilities due to shift durations. In this work, we would use the flight schedule and service criteria to develop a method to find optimal shift timings that considers non-productive time due to activity changeovers, the mix of full-time and part-time workers and passenger waiting time criteria.
      Robust Optimization of Railway Locomotive Assignment
      Sponsor: Transport and Mobility Laboratory, EPFL
      Team: Michel Bierlaire (PI), Prem Kumar (PM), Francesco Piu
      Period: October 01, 2010-September 30, 2011
      Locomotive assignment at Railway companies is a complex problem that must optimally assign a set of locomotives to known, scheduled trains. Each train has a power and traction requirement and locomotives may be available in groups known as "consist". There is a cost involved in breaking or adding a locomotive to a consist. Determining an optimal locomotive assignment that would also be robust to handle delays, maintenance requirements and other unknown factors is a complex problem. We are inspired from the research in a similar, closely related subject in the airline industry and would explore the possibilities of extending the same to railways. This project would be a part of the larger concept of "Flexible Transportation Systems"
      A Solution Technique for the Locomotive Refueling Problem
      Sponsor: Transport and Mobility Laboratory, EPFL
      Team: Michel Bierlaire (PI), Prem Kumar (PM)
      Period: July 15, 2010-July 15, 2012
      This problem corresponds to refueling locomotives at different station yards during the course of its journey. Locomotive tanks have a fixed fuel capacity and prices of fuel vary across yards. In addition, there is a fixed cost for hiring a refueling truck at a yard and every refueling stop that the locomotive makes. Locomotives can power different train sets during a cyclical planning horizon running 14 days. The objective of this exercise is to minimize the total fuel costs – fixed and operational – for a given set of locomotives, trains and yards. In addition, there are numerous constraints relating to refueling, locomotive tank capacity, refueling truck capacity etc. This problem has similarity to the network flow problem. We formulate this problem as a Mixed Integer Program (MIP) and present our experience in this project.

      Regular teaching

      Decision-aid methodologies in transportation
      Year: Spring 2012
      Section(s): Civil Engineering
      Lecturers: Michel Bierlaire, Prem Kumar
      Teaching assistant: Jingmin Chen, Nitish Umang
      Webpage: http://transp-or.epfl.ch/courses/decisionAid2012
      Optimization and Simulation
      Year: Spring 2012
      Section(s): Doctoral program in Civil and Environmental Engineering
      Lecturers: Michel Bierlaire, Bilal Farooq, Prem Kumar
      Teaching assistant: Nitish Umang
      Webpage: http://transp-or.epfl.ch/courses/OptSim2012/
      Decision-aid methodologies in transportation
      Year: Spring 2011
      Section(s): Civil Engineering
      Lecturers: Michel Bierlaire, Prem Kumar
      Teaching assistant: Jingmin Chen, Nitish Umang
      Webpage: http://transp-or.epfl.ch/courses/decisionAid2011

      Project supervision

      Masters theses

      François Anken
      Section: Mathematics
      MEETAWAY: Connecting People Optimally
      Supervision:Prem Kumar, Bilge Atasoy, Michel Bierlaire
      Expert: Pedro Faustino
      20/02/2012-06/07/2012
      Mahmoud Kharouf
      Section: Civil Engineering
      A two-stage sequential linear programming approach to optimize security staff at Geneva Airport
      Supervision:Michel Bierlaire, Nitish Umang, Prem Kumar
      Expert: Vincent-Ruben Jimenez
      20/02/2012-06/07/2012
      Alexandre Khelifa
      Section: Civil Engineering
      Blind Booking Purchase Patterns: discrete choice analysis
      Supervision:Michel Bierlaire, Bilge Atasoy, Prem Kumar
      Expert: Prof. Laurie Garrow, Georgia Tech.
      22/02/2010-23/07/2010
      Done at the Georgia Institute of Technology
      Peter G. Swartz
      Section: Civil Engineering
      Modeling for Strategic Robustness
      Supervision:Michel Bierlaire, Prem Kumar
      Expert: Prof. Christopher Zegras, MIT
      10/02/2010-23/07/2010
      Done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

      Semester projects

      • Optimizing Security Staff Operations at Geneva Airport, MAHMOUD KHAROUF, June 20, 2012
      • Optimizing Train Design in Capacitated Railroads, Stefan Binder, January 12, 2012
      • Optimizing Staffing Plans at Airports, François Anken (SMA), January 05, 2011