Benders decomposition for the uncapacitated multiple allocation hub location problem

  • Authors:

  • R. S. de Camargo;G. Miranda, Jr.;H. P. Luna

  • Affiliations:

  • Departamento da Ciência da Computação, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Av. Antônio Carlos, 6627, Prédio do Icex, sala 4010, Pampulha, zip 31270-010, Belo Horizonte, ...;Departamento da Engenharia de Produção, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Av. Antônio Carlos, 6627, Pavilhão Central de Aulas, Pampulha, zip 30161-010, Belo Horizonte, Mina ...;Instituto de Computação, Universidade Federal de Alagoas, Campus A. C. Simíes, BR 104, Km 14, Tabuleiro dos Martins, zip 57072-970, Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil

  • Venue:
  • Computers and Operations Research
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

In telecommunication and transportation systems, the uncapacitated multiple allocation hub location problem (UMAHLP) arises when we must flow commodities or information between several origin-destination pairs. Instead of establishing a direct node to node connection from an origin to its destination, the flows are concentrated with others at facilities called hubs. These flows are transported on links established between hubs, being then splitted and delivered to its final destination. Systems with this sort of topology are named hub-and-spoke (HS) systems or hub-and-spoke networks. They are designed to exploit the scale economies attainable through the shared use of high capacity links between hubs. Therefore, the problem is to find the least expensive HS network, selecting hubs and assigning traffic to them, given the demands between each origin-destination pair and the respective transportation costs. In the present paper, we present efficient Benders decomposition algorithms based on a well known formulation to tackle the UMAHLP. We have been able to solve some large instances, considered 'out of reach' of other exact methods in reasonable time.