A bi-objective dynamic programming approach for airline green fleet planning

Ensuring a fleet of green aircraft is a basic step in mitigating aviation pollution issues that are expected to be worsen in the coming years due to rapid air traffic growth. This study proposed a novel methodology in green fleet planning in which both profit and green performance of airline are considered simultaneously and explicitly. To do this, a Green Fleet Index (GFI) is derived as an indicator to quantify the green performance of airline’s fleet. It measures the degree of airline compliance with a standard requirement in terms of emission, noise, and fuel consumption. A bi-objective dynamic programming model is then formulated to find optimal aircraft acquisition (lease or purchase) decision by minimizing GFI and maximizing profit. Several interesting results are obtained: (1) considering environmental issue as secondary objective yields a greener fleet; (2) airline’s profit is affected, but could be recovered from environmental cost savings; (3) increasing load factor is an effective operational improvement strategy to enhance airline’s green performance and raise profit level. It is anticipated that the framework developed in this study could assist airlines to make a smart decision when considering the need to be green.     

Mathematical properties and constraints representation for bottom-up approaches to the evaluation of GHG mitigation policies

Bottom-up models, including MARKAL, MESSAGE and AIM, are widely used when analyzing the effect of greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement policies. These bottom-up models are mostly formulated as a linear programming (LP) optimization model to find both the minimal cost combination of abatement technologies and energy flows while satisfying demands. It is not unusual that the bottom-up modeling involves a great number of technical, industrial, socioeconomic and environmental constraints. Investigating representative constraints needed for analyzing GHG abatement policies, this study proposes how to implement these constraints in bottom-up modeling.     

Energy savings in transport

A decade of increasing Federal attention to urban transportation needs has culminated in the 1970 Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act. This Act is intended to provide 10 thousand million dollars over the next 12 years in Federal assistance money to urban public transportation systems. This paper examines the needs of selected U.S. cities as a basis for (1) understanding the vast, various and complex transportation needs of urban areas throughout the country, and (2) assessing the sufficiency of these funds. The sample cities have been placed into three broad categories based on the state of development of their transportation systems. In Category I cities, the essential need is to ensure the survival of bus systems for the use of non‐drivers, or to provide some other viable alternative to the automobile; in Category II cities, the primary needs are to relieve auto congestion and to improve public transportation components, while in Category III cities, the primary need is massive investment to improve and to extend public transportation facilities. It is concluded that the presently intended Federal funding level for transportation will not meet the financial requirements of the Category III cities.     

Optimization models for differentiating quality of service levels in probabilistic network capacity design problems

This paper develops various chance-constrained models for optimizing the probabilistic network design problem (PNDP), where we differentiate the quality of service (QoS) and measure the related network performance under uncertain demand. The upper level problem of PNDP designs continuous/discrete link capacities shared by multi-commodity flows, and the lower level problem differentiates the corresponding QoS for demand satisfaction, to prioritize customers and/or commodities. We consider PNDP variants that have either fixed flows (formulated at the upper level) or recourse flows (at the lower level) according to different applications. We transform each probabilistic model into a mixed-integer program, and derive polynomial-time algorithms for special cases with single-row chance constraints. The paper formulates benchmark stochastic programming models by either enforcing to meet all demand or penalizing unmet demand via a linear penalty function. We compare different models and approaches by testing randomly generated network instances and an instance built on the Sioux–Falls network. Numerical results demonstrate the computational efficacy of the solution approaches and derive managerial insights.     

Containership scheduling with transit-time-sensitive container shipment demand

This paper examines the optimal containership schedule with transit-time-sensitive demand that is assumed to be a decreasing continuous function of transit time. A mixed-integer nonlinear non-convex optimization model is first formulated to maximize the total profit of a ship route. In view of the problem structure, a branch-and-bound based holistic solution method is developed. It is rigorously demonstrated that this solution method can obtain an ε-optimal solution in a finite number of iterations for general forms of transit-time-sensitive demand. Computational results based on a trans-Pacific liner ship route demonstrate the applicability and efficiency of the solution method.     

Scheduling of Intelligent and Autonomous Vehicles under pairing/unpairing collaboration strategy in container terminals

A new class of Intelligent and Autonomous Vehicles (IAVs) has been designed in the framework of Intelligent Transportation for Dynamic Environment (InTraDE) project funded by European Union. This type of vehicles is technologically superior to the existing Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs), in many respects. They offer more flexibility and intelligence in maneuvering within confined spaces where the logistic operations take place. This includes the ability of pairing/unpairing enabling a pair of 1-TEU (20-foot Equivalent Unit) IAVs dynamically to join, transport containers of any size between 1-TEU and 1-FFE (40-foot Equivalent) and disjoin again. Deploying IAVs helps port operators to remain efficient in coping with the ever increasing volume of container traffic at ports and eliminate the need for deploying more 40-ft transporters in the very confined area of ports. In order to accommodate this new feature of IAVs, we review and extend one of the existing mixed integer programming models of AGV scheduling in order to minimize the makespan of operations for transporting a set of containers of different sizes between quay cranes and yard cranes. In particular, we study the case of Dublin Ferryport Terminal. In order to deal with the complexity of the scheduling model, we develop a Lagrangian relaxation-based decomposition approach equipped with a variable fixing procedure and a primal heuristics to obtain high-quality solution of instances of the problem.     

公共电动自行车系统运营模式设计模型

当前对传统公共自行车系统运营模式的研究主要是定性分析,各种方法标准不一,且研究结论与实际差别较大,不能直接用于资金、设施等要求更高的公共电动自行车系统的运营模式设计问题.因此,提出了一种定量设计模型,利用0-1混合整数规划模型对系统的经营主体进行筛选,再利用动态规划模型分配资源.利用算例进行模拟分析,结果表明:①与以资金多和收益好为优的常规的定性分析法相比,定量模型能更合理配置系统构成要素,降低政府的财政负担,分别为政府节省18.68%和23.09%的资金.②在公共电动自行车系统建设和运营过程中,宜采用政企合作模式.③相对于系统运营而言,系统建设期间对政府投入的资金反应更灵敏,因此政府有必要加大建设期的资金投入.     

基于COM技术的节理构造统计分析

应用赤平极射投影原理研究节理统计的程序化算法,其中采用Muhiquadrie方法建立原始节理数据三维模型和加权法计算优势方位.为便于在工程实践中快速识别节理化岩体结构,根据上述算法应用基于COM技术的MATLAB和VB 混合编程方法开发节理统计分析程序.对厦蓉高速公路水都线现场测量数据进行分析,结果表明:该程序能实现优势结构面自动分组和信息统计.     

拉格朗日松弛启发式算法求解时空网络下的弧路径问题

为减少车辆调度成本,优化车辆运输路径,在时空网络中研究路段作业车辆的弧路径问题;考虑道路出行的时变性,利用车辆运行的时间、空间特征,构建时间-空间网络,建立弧路径问题的时空网络流模型;设计了拉格朗日松弛启发式算法,引入拉格朗日乘子松弛耦合约束,构建拉格朗日松弛问题;进一步通过拉格朗日分解,把松弛问题分解为单车最短路问题;用次梯度算法更新乘子,求解拉格朗日对偶问题,并更新原问题最优解的下界;使用启发式算法获得可行解,并更新原问题最优解的上界;用六结点运输网络和Sioux-Falls网络下的算例对算法进行实证分析。计算结果表明：六结点运输网络中6个算例的上下界间隙值等于0或接近0,Sioux-Falls网络中算例2的间隙值为0.02%,其余5个算例的间隙值等于0,均可以得到质量较高的近似最优解;在最复杂的算例(15辆车,70个任务)中,算法在可接受的时间内也得到了间隙值为0的解,找出了最优的车辆路径;随着迭代次数的增加,拉格朗日乘子会逐步收敛到固定值;当车辆容量从50增加到100时,最优解从52下降到42,说明在任务数和车辆数一定时,适当增加车容量可以降低运营成本。可见,与商业求解器相比,拉格朗日松弛启发式算法的间隙值更小,求解质量更高,可以更有效地求解弧路径问题。     

Liner shipping network design with emission control areas: A genetic algorithm-based approach

To curb emissions, containerized shipping lines face the traditional trade-off between cost and emissions (CO₂ and SO_x) reduction. This paper considers this element in the context of liner service design and proposes a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model based on a multi-commodity pickup and delivery arc-flow formulation. The objective is to maximize the profit by selecting the ports to be visited, the sequence of port visit, the cargo flows between ports, as well as the number/operating speeds of vessels on each arc of the selected route. The problem also considers that Emission Control Areas (ECAs) exist in the liner network and accounts for the vessel carrying capacity. In addition to using the MILP solver of CPLEX, we develop in the paper a specific genetic algorithm (GA) based heuristic and show that it gives the possibility to reach an optimal solution when solving large size instances.