[Opt-Net] cfp Workshop on Vehicle Routing under Uncertainty

[Peter Buchholz]

International Workshop
Vehicle Routing under Uncertainty
 September 23rd, 2015 Dortmund, Germany
Workshop homepage: http://grk1855.tu-dortmund.de/cms/en/home/vru2015
Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) are hard combinatorial optimization
problems with real applications in many areas where goods have to be
collected or delivered. Different variants and extensions of VRPs exist
to model practical situations. Although the computation of the optimal
solution even for the simplest forms of VRPs is NP-complete, nowadays
several approximate and heuristic algorithms are available to solve even
larger instances of the different variants of VRPs with sufficient accuracy.
However, in most practical situations, the knowledge about system
parameters like travelling times, customer demands or time windows is
incomplete or changes over time. The resulting uncertainty about the
system is usually not considered in the optimization problem which may
result in too optimistic or even wrong results.
There is a need for approaches that consider uncertainty in the VRP and
compute optimal solutions with respect to the incomplete knowledge about
the system. Different variants of modeling uncertainty exist that
include stochastic approaches and parameter bounds. Although VRPs with
parameter uncertainties are even more complex to solve than fully
specified deterministic VRPs, nowadays applicable algorithms exist to
solve such VRPs of a moderate size.
The workshop shall bring together researchers that work on different
aspects of VRPs under uncertainty.
Topics of the workshop include:
•    Modeling of uncertainty in VRPs
•    Stochastic VRPs
•    Robust VRPs
•    Dynamic VRPs
•    Application of VRPs with uncertainty
•    Algorithms to solve VRPs with uncertain parameters
•    Software for the analysis of VRPs with uncertain parameters
The workshop program consists of talks of 30 minutes duration and leaves
room for discussions.
It is planned to have invited and contributed talks.
Invited presentations:
•    Karl Dörner (University of Vienna)
•    Daniele Vigo (Università di Bologna)
•    Wolfram Wiesemann (Imperial College London)
Submissions:
Contributions are solicited in the mentioned or related areas. A short
abstract of 1 or 2 pages about a potential talk at the workshop should
be sent to the workshop organizers via email
(peter.buchholz at cs.tu-dortmund.de) by the 15th of August 2015. Upon
acceptance it is possible, but not mandatory, to submit a longer
version. Abstracts and slides will appear in an internal research report
of the TU Dortmund which is given to all contributors of the workshop.
Participation:
Potential participants are invited to come to the workshop. No fees will
be imposed.