Preface
Transportation sustains economic and social activity and is central
to operations research and management science. When operations
research emerged as a structured field during World War II, some of
the first problems investigated arose from the need to optimize
military logistics and transportation activities. After the war
ended, the scope of operations research applications broadened but
transportation problems always occupied a central place. It is now
widely recognized that some of the most successful applications of
operations research are encountered in transportation, most
significantly in the airline industry where it underlies almost
every aspect of strategic, tactical and operational planning. This
success story may be explained by a number of factors, the first
being the economic importance of transportation. Also, the
complexity and large scale of transportation problems call for
powerful analytical techniques, and the high volumes involved imply
that substantial savings can often be achieved through the use of
optimization. Furthermore, transportation problems are highly
structured, making them amenable to the use of efficient solution
methods based on network optimization techniques and mathematical
programming.
This book contains eleven chapters describing some of the most
recent methodological operations research developments in
transportation. It is structured around the main transportation
modes, and each chapter is written by a group of well-recognized
researchers. Because of the major impact of operations research
methods in the field of air transportation over the past forty
years, it is befitting to open the book with a chapter on
airlineoperations management. While many past publications have
focused on airline strategic and tactical planning, Ball, Barnhart,
Nemhauser and Odoni have chosen to address the organization and
control of recovery operations in the event of disturbances. This
line of research is relatively new and of major importance to the
airline industry. The second chapter, by Desaulniers and Hickman,
surveys the planning of public transit operations. The problems
addressed and the methods employed in transit planning, for example
those arising in network design, passenger assignment, scheduling,
and fleet and crew assignment, are often similar to those of the
airlines. The railway optimization chapter, by Caprara, Kroon,
Monaci, Peeters and Toth, covers the realm of planning problems
encountered in railway planning, with an emphasis on European
passenger railways. Again, several of these issues are similar to
those observed in other modes, but some problems are specific to
the railway industry, such as train platforming, rolling stock
circulation, and train unit shunting. The fourth chapter, by
Christiansen, Fagerholt, Nygreen and Ronen, contains an extensive
survey of maritime transportation problems, methods and
applications. Compared with other modes, maritime transportation
has received relatively little attention from operations
researchers. Yet this field is rapidly expanding with the
consolidation of major shipping companies and the development of
large container ports.
The next three chapters cover a variety of planning problems
arising in vehicle fleet management. The chapter by Powell,
Bouzaiene-Ayari and Simao addresses truck transportation planning
in contexts where information processesare dynamic. The focus is on
the development of models that capture the flow of information and
decisions. The vehicle routing chapter, by Cordeau, Laporte,
Savelsbergh and Vigo, concerns what is arguably the most central
problem in distribution management. It surveys several families of
vehicle routing problems, including classical models, inventory
routing, and stochastic routing. In the transportation on demand
chapter, Cordeau, Laporte, Potvin and Savelsbergh consider the
planning of pickup and delivery operations made at the request of
users, such as those encountered in courier services, dial-a-ride
operations, dial-a-flight systems, and ambulance fleet
deployment.
The eighth chapter, by Crainic and Kim, is devoted to intermodal
transportation and ties in some planning issues encountered in
railway, maritime, and trucking operations. This chapter describes
methodologies relevant to the solution of system design and
operations planning problems from the perspective of a carrier, or
from that of an intermodal transfer facility operator. It also
addresses problems encountered at the regional or national level.
The next chapter, by Erkut, Tjandra and Verter, concerns the
transportation of hazardous materials and includes a broad
description of the issues encountered in this field, as well as
methodological contributions on risk assessment, routing and
scheduling, and facility location.
The last two chapters of the book cover the area of automobile
transportation. Marcotte and Patriksson first survey the broad
field of traffic equilibrium. Their chapter contains a rich account
of the main equilibrium concepts, as well as subproblems and
mathematical algorithms encountered inthis area. This chapter
provides an informative bibliographical note at the end of each
section. Finally, in the last chapter, Papageorgiou, Ben-Akiva,
Bottom, Bovy, Hoogendoorn, Hounsell, Kotsialos and McDonald
summarize some of the most important issues and recent developments
encountered in ITS and traffic management. These include traffic
flow models, route guidance and information systems, as well as
urban and highway traffic control.
We are confident that this book will prove useful to researchers,
students, and practitioners in transportation, and we hope it will
stimulate further research in this rich and fascinating area. We
are grateful to Jan Karel Lenstra and George L. Nemhauser who
invited us to edit this volume. While the process took longer than
we had expected, we found the experience highly rewarding. Our deep
thanks go to all authors for the quality of their contributions, to
the anonymous referees for their time, effort, and valuable
suggestions, and to Gerard Wanrooy of Elsevier for his
support.
Cynthia Barnhart, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Gilbert Laporte, HEC Montreal
*Volume 14 examines transport and its relationship with operations
and management science
*11 chapters cover the most recent research developments in
transportation
*Focuses on main transportation modes-air travel, automobile,
public transit, maritime transport, and more
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