Applicant: El-Houssaine Aghezzaf | Application number:

New Research project

Date of the application

Scientific field Science and Technology
FWO-Expertpanel Science and Technology of Constructions and The Built
Environment (W&T9)
Motivation This research project aims at developing an integrated
framework for logistic flows optimization and traffic
management and control in logistical networks. This is a
fundamental issue within mobility and transport as well as
operational management, systems management and
logistics. We believe that the FWO-Expertpanel in charge
of "Mobility and transport" and “Operational management,
systems management and logistics” is adequate to
evaluate this research proposal.
Discipline(s) Mobility and transport
Operational management,
systems management and
logistics

GENERAL
Dutch title Geïntegreerde optimalisatie van logistieke stromen en
verkeersmanagement
English title Integrated Optimization of Logistic Flows and Traffic
Management
Funding year 2014
 Applicant: El-Houssaine Aghezzaf | Application number:

RESEARCH
Main host institution Universiteit Gent
Additional host Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
institution(s) Universiteit Antwerpen
Promoter El-Houssaine Aghezzaf
Co-promoter(s) Tampère Chris (Assistant Professor)
[Chris.Tampere@cib.kuleuven.be]
Vansteenwegen Pieter (Assistant Professor)
[pieter.vansteenwegen@cib.kuleuven.be]
Sörensen Kenneth (Full Professor)
[kenneth.sorensen@ua.ac.be]
 Applicant: El-Houssaine Aghezzaf | Application number:

FUNDS PER HOST INSTITUTION

Universiteit Gent
Staff
Year Total Scientists Technicians Amount Equipmen Consumabl
t es
Fulltim Parttime Fulltim Parttime
e e
2014 70000 1 60000 10000
2015 67500 1 60000 7500
2016 67500 1 60000 7500
2017 67500 1 60000 7500

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Staff
Year Total Scientists Technicians Amount Equipmen Consumabl
t es
Fulltim Parttime Fulltim Parttime
e e
2014 70000 1 60000 10000
2015 67500 1 60000 7500
2016 67500 1 60000 7500
2017 67500 1 60000 7500

Universiteit Antwerpen
Staff
Year Total Scientists Technicians Amount Equipmen Consumabl
t es
Fulltim Parttime Fulltim Parttime
e e
2014 20000 0 20000
2015 0 0
2016 0 0
2017 0 0
 Applicant: El-Houssaine Aghezzaf | Application number:

STAFF
Scientific staff

Surname, first name and Host institution Academic Current employer

date of birth degree

Technical and/or administrative staff

Surname, first name and Host institution Academic Current employer

date of birth degree

Motivation of At UGent, a master degree holder with background in

requested staff operations research and logistics will be hired to carry out
the research focusing on the design and management of
logistical networks and related logistic flows optimization.
At KU Leuven a master degree holder with background in
operations research and traffic management will be hired
to carry out the research focusing on traffic management
and control. Both researchers will collaborate on the
integrated framework under the supervision of the
promoters

EQUIPMENT
Requested equiment
Description, technical aspects and accessories Total cost Requested
funding

Necessity of the
requested equipment

CONSUMABLES
Consumables
Year Host institution Requested funding
2014 UGent 10000
Type of cost: For the to be hired researcher and for the promoters: hard- and
software; books and literature; conference registrations and
traveling expenses.

2014 KULeuven 10000

 Applicant: El-Houssaine Aghezzaf | Application number:

Type of cost: For the to be hired researcher and for the promoters: hard- and
software; books and literature; conference registrations and
traveling expenses.

2014 UA 20000
Type of cost: For the promoter: hard- and software; books and literature;
conference registrations and traveling expenses to cover the four
years of the project.

2015 UGent 7500

Type of cost: For the to be hired researcher and for the promoters: hard- and
software; books and literature; conference registrations and
traveling expenses.

2015 KULeuven 7500

Type of cost: For the to be hired researcher and for the promoters: hard- and
software; books and literature; conference registrations and
traveling expenses.

2016 UGent 7500

Type of cost: For the to be hired researcher and for the promoters: hard- and
software; books and literature; conference registrations and
traveling expenses.

2016 KULeuven 7500

Type of cost: For the to be hired researcher and for the promoters: hard- and
software; books and literature; conference registrations and
traveling expenses.

2017 UGent 7500

Type of cost: For the to be hired researcher and for the promoters: hard- and
software; books and literature; conference registrations and
traveling expenses.

2017 KULeuven 7500

Type of cost: For the to be hired researcher and for the promoters: hard- and
software; books and literature; conference registrations and
traveling expenses.
 Applicant: El-Houssaine Aghezzaf | Application number:

FINANCING
Requested funds for the same project elsewhere

Source of funding 0
Number of staff 0
Description of the equipment 0
Consumables 0

Estimation of the available funds

Source of funding 0
Number of staff 0
Description of the equipment 0
Consumables 0

Fund managers
Name and address Account

MEDICAL ETHICS
Experiments on No
humans
Experiments on No
animals
Genetically modified No
organisms
Issues
Precautions
Control of safety
Attachment 1: Project summary in layman’s terms
Use up to 1.500 characters, signs, spaces or line breaks. Limit the use of capital letters to
what is grammatically required.

Coordinating optimization of logistical flows and traffic management in a logistical network

is essential to improve its economic performance as well as its environmental impact.
Unmonitored movement of these logistic flows (distribution of goods, public transportation
and ridesharing flows) on a shared limited network capacity causes congestion, unreliable
travel times, delays in deliveries and many other environmental damages. To contribute
towards an efficient deployment of this shared limited transit capacity, the logistic flows
optimization subsystem aims at optimizing all logistical aspects of freight and people
transport, such as pickup and delivery operations, inventory management and route
scheduling. Traffic management and control subsystem on the other hand aims at optimizing
all operational aspects related to the traffic flow and infrastructure management, such as
network topology, tolls, permits and traffic controls.

In practice however, both subsystems are so far independently optimized and managed.
Consequently, the logistic operators may schedule deliveries during overloaded peak hours;
the traffic manager may impose freight transport routes that are in fact suboptimal for the
logistical subsystem. This lack of coordination leaves global optimization opportunities
unexplored, e.g. if the logistics operators assign delivery trips to routes and time slots having
least conflicts with other traffic flows and, in return, the traffic manager prioritizes freight
vehicles at traffic signals, then both systems would perform better.

This project explores the fundamental relationships between logistical flows optimization and
traffic management and develops an integrated optimization framework to dynamically
manage these two interconnected subsystems. In a later phase, a number of projects (IWT,
ERC, etc.) will be submitted to support putting this new framework into practice.
Attachment 2: Project outline
State of the Art (Use up to 5.000 characters, signs, spaces or line breaks. Limit the use of
capital letters to what is grammatically required)
Indicate the status quaestionis concerning the topic(s) you want to investigate.

Logistics optimization is in the usual sense primarily concerned with the efficient movement
of goods and material flows from suppliers to factories and then to retailers through
warehouses. The main goal of the logistical subsystem is to guarantee that goods are
produced and distributed in the right quantities, to the right locations and at the right time,
and so as to minimize the total system’s cost subject to some predetermined service
requirements (Simchi-Levi et al., 2005). The typical basic optimization problem underlying
the logistical system optimization can be formulated as an enriched inventory routing
problem including facility location-allocation features. This problem is itself a composite
problem which includes inventory management, route scheduling with time windows and
travel time constraints, and facility location and allocation. The basic variants of this problem
were investigated, among other, by Federgruen and Zipkin (1984); Dror et al. (1985); Dror
and Ball (1987); Anily and Federgruen (1990). Bard et al. (1998), Campbell et al. (2002),
Aghezzaf et al. (2006), Raa and Aghezzaf (2009), and for more recent reviews on this
enriched inventory routing problem see Andersson et al., (2010) and Coelho et al. (2012). All
these variants belong to the class of NP-hard optimization problems and are known to be
challenging to solve.

Traffic management belongs to the broader class of Network Design Problems (NDP), which
can be formulated as a bi-level optimization (Patriksson and Rockafellar 2002; Gallo et al.
2010; Wismans et al. 2011). The Stackelberg leader in this game minimizes an objective such
as environmental impact or total time spent (where special classes like public transportation
can be given higher weights or even full priority) by setting controls. The followers are
travellers who selfishly optimize their trips, leading to user equilibrium (Patriksson 1994).

Until now, both subsystems are optimized independently, notwithstanding the fact that both
are strongly interconnected: Exogenous variables to the logistical flows optimization problem
include endogenous variables of the traffic network design problem, like network topology,
dedicated lanes (for public transportation and freight vehicles), circulation plans, tolls,
delivery time windows, traffic signals. Furthermore, the amount, timing and routes of trips to
be processed are considered exogenous to the traffic network design problem, yet the freight
part of demand is set by the logistical subsystem and is often considered inelastic.

The impact of each subsystem on the other is now becoming too important to ignore.
Congestion, noise and emission can certainly be contained through an integration of both
logistics and traffic management systems. The logistical subsystem is nowadays being
increasingly consolidated and coordinated, herewith creating a rational player with whom the
traffic manager could negotiate to further optimize the overall system’s performance. In the
remainder of this proposal, the logistical network or system should be understood as a global
logistical structure including not only the classical freight flow but also public transport and
ridesharing flows. To the best of our knowledge, the integration opportunity of these two
subsystems is not yet exploited.
Objectives (Use up to 5.000 characters, signs, spaces or line breaks. Limit the use of capital
letters to what is grammatically required)
Describe the envisaged research and the research hypothesis, why it is important to the field,
what impact it could have, whether and how it is specifically unconventional and
challenging.

The research in this proposal has the ultimate ambition to:

develop an integrated optimization framework to manage logistical flows

optimization and traffic management and control subsystems, in a way that
leads to a better overall performance of these strongly interacting components
of the logistical network.

This general purpose decomposes in the following envisaged contributions.

1. understand interactions between logistics optimization and traffic management and

control and the nature of potential integrative optimization opportunities

Organizing traffic management and control is essentially a game theoretical problem. The
Stackelberg leader pursues a system optimal state by selecting optimal controls from a
feasible set (network topology or characteristics, tolls, time windows, traffic signals etcetera).
The travellers are the followers in the game who selfishly optimize the timing and route of
their trips, leading to user equilibrium conditions (Wardrop, 1952).

The logistic operators, for instance public transportation operator, ridesharing participants
and distributors of goods and services, are among the followers. However, they act
increasingly coordinated and consolidated, e.g. in case of urban logistics by collecting and
sorting long-haul deliveries in distribution centres after which they are delivered to their final
destinations by smaller and cleaner freight vehicles (Benjelloun and Crainic, 2008). Hence,
they are no longer a collection of individual, selfish optimizers; rather they appear as one (or
a few) well-orchestrated rational operators governing a substantial part of the total trip
demand on the network. This creates opportunity to consider them as cooperating player(s).

2. find coordination algorithms exploiting integrative optimization opportunities

Exchange of information between the cooperative logistical operator and the traffic manager
(e.g. about the cost of deviating from one’s own optimum) allows identifying win-win
solutions that were previously infeasible, since the logistical actors are used to consider
traffic network and control as exogenous and optimized their trip planning given these hard
constraints, whereas the traffic manager used to consider trip demand as exogenous and
optimized network design and control accordingly. Moreover, win-lose solutions for
individual players but having net overall benefit over the players combined also become
feasible, as there can be negotiation about redistribution of gain between the cooperative
players: the ‘benefited’ retrocede a part their extra profit to compensate the ‘harmed’ for their
losses and making them share the savings.

Algorithms are required to structure this coordination in a way that convergence to a stable
combined optimum is achieved effectively and in an efficient way.
3. explore and solve the extended logistic flows optimization problem with soft traffic
management constraints

The development of effective management and control policies for a logistical system, which
take traffic constraints into account, is a challenging research problem. The many factors
impacting logistic operations make the involved decision-making models complex. The
typical optimization problem underlying the logistical system can be formulated as a “rich”
inventory routing problem, including facility location and allocation as well as time windows
and time dependent travel times features.

Extended variants of these problems need to be defined that consider network and traffic
characteristics as soft rather than hard (exogenous) constraints.

4. explore and solve the extended traffic management design problem with soft logistics
demand constraints

Traffic management and control is typically formulated as a bi-level network design problem
(NDP). The quality of the solution (e.g. the objective function value at system level) is not
homogeneously dependent on travel demand. Some travellers cause high externalities to
others (e.g. left turning traffic on a busy intersection requires a green phase that makes all
other conflicting traffic wait), while others hardly influence the delay of others (e.g. right
turning into a quiet street). Ideally, the operator would want to negotiate with users causing
the highest externalities to reconsider their choices for the sake of total system cost. This is
conceivable on an individual basis (cooperative vehicle-infrastructure systems), though not
too realistic in practice due to the large scale of the problem and the heterogeneity of the
individual actors involved.

An extended variant of the NDP is considered where some users are controlled by a (central)
dispatching system that optimizes planning and operations of a vehicle fleet, such as
logistical operators (or public transportation). This extended NDP treats these users’ demand
and trip planning (time, route) as soft constraints.

5. combine and coordinate the extended logistics optimization and traffic management
design problems

The final objective of this research is to integrate the extended logistics optimization and
NDP subproblems, where the soft constraints of each subproblem are defined by the other
subproblem.

Convincingly, applying such combined optimization problem to real size problem instances
would inherit the complexity inherent to the logistics optimization and to the traffic
management problems. Developing effective solution algorithms to solve this combined
problem would probably be a very challenging issue. It is, however, possible that the
integration these two complex problems may have an attenuating effect on the complexity of
the resulting optimization problem. In other words, allowing the possibility of relaxing or
loosening some parameters or constraints, such as trip-demand patterns or traffic directions,
may result in some tractable versions of the integrated optimization problem. By a tractable
we mean a problem which can be recognized, and then solved, using some polynomial time
algorithm. This issue will also be investigated in this project and would be an essential results
should we be able to identify classes of such tractable versions.
Methodology (Use up to 9.000 characters, signs, spaces or line breaks.)
Be as detailed as necessary for a clear understanding of what you propose. Describe the
different envisaged steps in your research, including intermediate goals. Indicate how you
will handle unforeseen circumstances, intermediate results and risks. Show where the
proposed methodology is according to the state of the art and where it is novel.

Logistic flows optimization is customarily concerned with the efficient movement of goods
and material flows from suppliers to factories and then to retailers through warehouses. In
this proposal, however, we consider as logical flows not only goods and material flows, but
also public transportation and ridesharing flows. All these flows do share the same
capacitated infrastructure. The goal of this extended logistical system is thus optimally
coordinating and managing the movement of these various flows within the system, while
guaranteeing that goods and material flows are produced and distributed in the right
quantities, to the right locations and at the right time, and that public transportation and
ridesharing flows reach their final destinations at the right time. The movement of these
physical flows is naturally subject to many constraints inherent to the traffic network. The
most critical amongst these constraints are those related to traffic network design, lane
capacities and traffic congestion. Traffic management and control deals with all operational
aspects related to traffic flows and design of the infrastructure. These include the possibility
of redesigning the traffic network to accommodate the traffic demand. The main goal of this
project is to investigate and develop an integrative optimization framework which will allow
both logistical flows optimization and traffic management subsystems to work optimally in
partnership. The purpose of the framework is to allow each subsystem to gain mutual
benefits, each from the other, to reach some global operating optimum with reduced costs for
all players involved.

After all, in the separate subsystems, the constraints of one player are set by the choices of
the other: the logistical flows optimization subsystem takes the travel times caused by other
traffic flows and traffic control settings as a given fixed input to its own planning and
operational optimization; the traffic controller takes the origin destination matrix and the
resulting individual trips (decided among others by the logistics and public transportation
planners and dispatchers) as fixed input. Both groups could mutually benefit if those fixed
constraints may possibly be relaxed in order to enrich the solution space of their respective
optimization problems. For instance, the logistic operators might combine shipments or
relocate warehouses, herewith reducing or changing the traffic demand that the traffic
controller has to manage. Likewise, the public transportation operator may possibly reroute or
reschedule trips in order to minimize conflicts with other traffic (e.g. avoid left-turning, avoid
peaks in demand by other groups). In return, the traffic controller may perhaps prioritize
public or freight transportation if they use the suggested routes and time windows. Or he may
urge groups with heterogeneous operational speeds to segregate over parallel alternative
routes, such that different synchronization speeds can be applied to optimize traffic signals on
the parallel, now more homogeneous corridors (whereas currently some compromise is
needed, or one group is considered normative, herewith serving others suboptimally).

This combined optimization problem entails some fundamental challenges. First, it combines
two domains, each of which exhibits complex dynamic non-linear behaviour which
complicates optimization in a high-dimensional solution space with multiple constraints.
Second, in order to make its deployment possible in practice, the multi-player aspect needs to
be considered. Whereas an overall optimization is conceivable, the global optimum might
require one player (e.g. logistic operator) to do more concessions than the other(s) (e.g. public
transportation). In order to motivate disadvantaged players to be cooperative, redistribution of
overall benefits might be required. The nature of this redistribution agreement affects the
feasible solution space of the overall optimization. Thirdly, in the multi-player game, each
player has control over a subset of the decision variables. When striving for an overall
optimum with decentralized decision makers, information on the control settings of multiple
controllers therefore needs to be explicitly communicated. This is substantially simplified if
the overall optimization can be algorithmically decomposed into restricted subproblems for
each player, between which a minimum of iterations and of information exchange is required
to achieve an acceptable overall approximate solution.

To address this challenging and complex combined problem, a methodology is proposed

consisting of 4 steps:

1. propose an integrated global optimization of the combined logistic flows optimization

and traffic management and design problem
This step intends to understand the nature of the interactions between both
subproblems and the essence of optimization directions for the combined problem.
We investigate how the variables that are traditionally exchanged as exogenous
variables (hard constraints) between both subproblems need to be changed for an
improved overall solution. We disregard here the multiplayer aspect and use
simplified, more abstract representations of the subproblems for the sake of
tractability.

2. decompose the integrated master problem into restricted subproblems with an

appropriate coordination mechanism
This step adopts the structure of the optimal solutions of the first step, but
decomposes it into restricted subproblems in order to reflect the multiplayer character
of the real combined logistic flows optimization and traffic management and design
problem. The subproblems themselves are still simplified, and the focus of this step is
on the coordination algorithms and its properties. This step will define how formerly
hard constraints are turned in negotiable soft constraints. In the coordination, the
concept of marginal (or shadow) price for modifying a soft constraint is likely to be
exploited, as well as a cost for non-coordination that should vanish as consistent
solutions for the subproblems are approached.

3. elaboration of soft constraints in the respective subproblems of logistics optimization

and traffic management and design
State of the art solutions from the respective domains are extended and modified to fit
into the coordination scheme of the previous step. This entails among others removing
or (partly) relaxing some constraints (at a certain cost) that can significantly increase
the performance of the logistics optimization system. Likewise, traffic management
and control models should be capable of discovering which flows or flow patterns in
the network complicate traffic and at what cost some of these flows could be altered
(e.g. rerouted or postponed).

4. integration of the elaborate subproblem formulations and algorithms into the

coordination framework
This step does not just put the previously developed models and algorithms together.
Likely, approximate or heuristic algorithms need to be developed in order to make the
solution of real size problem instances feasible.
Research carried out at UGent, in close collaboration with research carried out at KULeuven,
will mainly focus on the logistic flows optimization system and its underlying optimization
models. The research work will mainly investigate how the traffic parameters should be
treated within the logistical flows optimization subsystem and how to measure their impact
on the current logistics performance (times and costs related to the supply network). Also, the
type of information and the form under which this information will be communicated to the
network design models will be investigated. To optimize the resulting logistics models and
their deployment, we will investigate a variety of optimization approaches ranging from
Branch-and-Price type solution approaches to metaheuristics. These approaches have proven
to be very effective for concurring optimization models allowing for information and data
exchange.

Research at KU Leuven, here also carried out in close collaboration with UGent, will focus
on the traffic management and control system and its underlying optimization models. The
traffic management and control problem will be modelled as a bi-level optimization problem
assuming a part of traffic demand, the one corresponding to freight transport, as a parameter
which can also be adapted (albeit at a certain cost). Likewise as the work carried out in
UGent on logistic flows optimization, the research work will mainly investigate how logistic
parameters should be treated within the traffic management and control system and how to
measure their impact on the current traffic performance (time spent by travellers,
congestion,…). Also, the type of information and the form under which this information will
be communicated to the logistics optimization models will be investigated.

In this project we will focus on developing this framework and making it operational. Since
this is fundamental research on a new framework only fundamental investigation of
integration of these subsystems and its application on prototype cases will be carried out in
this project. Therefore, during this project, we will also prepare future project proposals
which target real-life cases to illustrate the practical usefulness of our framework. Examples
of these projects could be an IWT project about the valorization of the opportunities for (city)
logistic providers or a European project about the benefits for ride sharing systems or a
project together with De Lijn or MIVB about public transportation.
Work Plan: Work Packages and Timetable
Describe the different work packages (WP) the proposed research work will be divided in.
Indicate for each WP the time that it is expected to take. You might use a table or another
type of scheme to clarify the work plan.
Use up to 2.000 characters, signs, spaces or line breaks. Limit the use of capital letters to
what is grammatically required.

For the execution of this project five work packages are distinguished, the coherence of
which is depicted in the figure below:

WP1 Integrative Optimization

Integrative optimization models

WP3 Traffic Network Design WP4 Logistic FlowS Optimization

abstract

WP2 Coordination
Problem Problem
Algorithms
Network design optimization Logistic flows optimization
public
transportation
Traffic and ridesharing
Inventory,
demand Trip demand
level of detail

warehousing &
shipment
Supply Chain
Network

Network Network Fleet planning &

controls Topology vehicle routing
Network + Costs Network
layout & costs
detailed

WP5 Combined Large Scales Problems

Case studies & Applications

Figure 1. Summary of the work packages

WP1 – Integrative optimization (UGent (9) + KULeuven (9); 18 MM)

In this work package, the combined network design – logistic flows optimization problem
will mathematically be formulated and solved as one integrated problem. Obviously, this
theoretical exercise requires simplified abstract models to be used and only small problem
instances will be possible to solve to optimality. The objective is to gain insight and
experience with the combined problem, to learn more on its structure and properties and to
understand the nature of the solution and the appropriate algorithms for its solution.

WP2 – Coordination algorithms (UGent (6) + KULeuven (6); 12 MM)

A decomposition of the integrative optimization of WP1 is elaborated in this work package
into the natural restricted subproblems: Network Design Problem (NDP) and Logistic Flows
Optimization Problem (LFOP). This allows exploiting maximally state of the art solutions to
these subproblems, as well as to transfer the theoretical framework of WP1 to a more
practical setting where both subproblems are governed by different agents (multiplayer
setting). The work package elaborates the information to be exchanged between the
subproblems, the way constraints are transferred and negotiated, and how both subproblems
are combined into an approximate solution of the master problem.

WP3 – Network design problem (KULeuven; 24 MM)

State of the art NDP formulations and algorithms are modified in this work package in order
to fit into the coordination algorithm of WP2. Extensions beyond the state of the art are
required to exploit the additional degrees of freedom, in that components of traffic demand
(i.e. the logistical trips) can be (requested to be) altered at a certain cost, whereas other
demand is fixed. Moreover, as the extended NDP is a component of a larger master problem,
efficient solution algorithms are required. Such algorithms will likely depend on the solution
space of the NDP, in other words: on the controls that can or cannot be modified: network
topology and capacity (= pure NDP); arc or route price (= optimal pricing problem); traffic
signals and traffic management measures (= optimal traffic control problem).

WP4 – Logistic flows optimization problem (UGent; 24 MM)

State of the art logistical flows optimization formulations (warehousing, inventory, shipment
and vehicle scheduling and routing, pickup and delivery, public transportation and
ridesharing trip planning,…) and algorithms will be adapted and modified in this work
package in order to fit into the coordination algorithm of WP2. Extensions beyond the state of
the art are required to exploit the additional degrees of freedom, in that components of
network design can be (requested to be) altered at a certain cost (components eligible for
modification depend on the solution space of the associated NDP). Also here, efficient
solution algorithms are indispensable as the LFOP is part of an iterative procedure solving the
integrated master problem.

WP5 – Coordination of network design and logistic flows optimization subproblems for
real size applications (UGent (9) + KULeuven (9); 18 MM)
In this WP, the extended network design subproblem (WP3) and logistic flows optimization
subproblem (WP4) are combined in the coordination framework of WP2. Whereas this
coordination was previously tested for simplified subproblem formulations, it needs to be
verified in this WP whether the combined master problem with more detailed subproblem
definitions exhibits similar solution properties (convergence, stability,…). As the combined
subproblems on larger real size problem instances represents a considerable computational
challenge, (meta-)heuristic approaches will likely be needed to find solutions.

Moreover, integrated logistic flows optimization and network design cases will be studied,
proving the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed coordination algorithms for solving
the integrative master problem on real size applications.
Bibliographical references
Enumerate the bibliographical references that are relevant for your research proposal.
Use up to 3.000 characters, signs, spaces or line breaks. Limit the use of capital letters to
what is grammatically required.

 Aghezzaf, E.-H., (2008), “Robust distribution planning for supplier-managed inventory

agreements when demand rates and travel times are stationary”. Journal of the Operational
Research Society 59, 1055-1065.
 Aghezzaf, E.-H., Raa, B., and Van Landeghem, H., (2006), “Modeling inventory routing
problems in supply chains of high consumption products”. European Journal of
Operational Research 169(3): 1048-1063.
 Andersson, H., Hoff, A., Christiansen, M., Hasle, G., and Lökketangen, A., (2010),
“Industrial aspects and literature survey: Combined inventory management and routing.”
Computers & Operations Research, 37(9):1515-1536.
 Anily, S and Federgruen, A. (1990), “One warehouse multiple retailer system with vehicle
routing costs”. Management Science, Vol. 36, No. 1, 92-114.
 Bard, J., Huang, L., Jaillet, P. and Dror, M. (1998), “A decomposition approach to the
inventory routing problem with satellite facilities”. Transportation Science, Vol. 32, 189-
203.
 Benjelloun, A., T. G. Crainic. (2008), “Trends, challenges, and perspectives in city
logistics”. Transportation and Land Use Interaction, Proc. TRANSLU’08. Editura
Politecnica Press, Bucharest, Romania, 269–284.
 Coelho, L.C., Cordeau, J.-F., Laporte. G., (2012), “Thirty Years of Inventory-Routing.”
submitted to Transportation Science.
 Campbell, A., Clarke, L., and Savelsbergh, M.W.P., (2002), “Inventory routing in
practice.” P. Toth, D. Vigo, eds. The Vehicle Routing Problem. SIAM Monographs on
Discrete Mathematics and Applications, Philadelphia, PA, 309–330.
 Dror, M., and Ball, M., (1987), “Inventory routing - reduction from an annual to a short-
period problem.” Naval Research Logistics, 34(6): 891–905.
 Dror, M., Ball, M., and Golden, B., (1985), “A computational comparison of algorithms
for the inventory routing problem. Annals of Operations Research, 4:3–23.
 Federgruen, A., and Zipkin, P., (1984), “A combined vehicle-routing and inventory
allocation problem”. Operations Research, 32(5):1019–1037.
 Gallo, Mariano, D’Acierno Luca, and Bruno Montella. 2010. “A Meta-heuristic Approach
for Solving the Urban Network Design Problem.” European Journal of Operational
Research 201 (1): 144–157.
 Jones, T.C., and Riley, D.W., (1985), “Using Inventory for Competitive Advantage
through Supply Chain Management”. International Journal of Physical Distribution and
Materials Management, Vol. 15, No. 5, 16-26.
 Kazimi, C., Brownstone, D., Ghosh, A., Golob, T.F., and Van Amelsfoort, D., eds (2000),
“Willingness-to-Pay to Reduce Commute Time and its Variance: Evidence from the San
Diego I-15 Congestion Pricing Project”, 79th Transportation Research Board, Washington
D.C., USA.
 Patriksson, Michael, and R. Tyrrell Rockafellar. 2002. “A Mathematical Model and
Descent Algorithm for Bilevel Traffic Management.” Transportation Science 36 (3)
(August 1): 271–291. doi:10.1287/trsc.36.3.271.7826.
 Patriksson, Michael. 1994. The Traffic Assignment Problem: Models and Methods. VSP.
 Raa, B, and Aghezzaf, E.-H., (2009), “A practical solution approach for the cyclic
inventory routing problem.” European Journal of Operational Research 192(2): 429-441.
 Sankaran, J.K., Gore, A., Coldwell, I., (2005), “The impact of road traffic congestion on
supply chains: insights from Auckland, New Zealand.” International Journal of Logisitics
8(2), 159-180.
 Simchi-Levi, David, Xin Chen, and Julien Bramel. The Logic of Logistics: Theory,
Algorithms, and Applications for Logistics and Supply Chain Management. 2nd ed. New
York, NY: Springer, 2005. ISBN: 9780387221991.
 Small, K., Noland, R.B., Chu, X., and Lewis, D., (1999), “Valuation of travel time savings
and predictability in congested conditions for highway user-cost estimation,” Technical
Report NCHRP report 431, Transportation Research Board. National Research Council.
 Taniguchi, E. & Shimamoto, H. (2004), “Intelligent transportation system based dynamic
vehicle routing and scheduling with variable travel times”. Transportation Research Part
C: Emerging Technologies 12, 235–250.
 Van Woensel, T., Kerbache, L., Peremans, H. and Vandaele, N., (2008), “Vehicle Routing
with dynamic travel times: a queueing approach.” European Journal of Operational
Research 186, 990-1007.
 Waller, M., Johnson, M.E., & Davis, T. (1999). Vendor Managed Inventory in the Retail
Supply Chain. Journal of Business Logistics, 20 (1), 183-203.
 Wardrop, J. G. (1952), Some theoretical aspects of road traffic research. Proc. Inst. Civil
Engineers, Part II, 325–378.
 Wismans, Luc, Eric van Berkum, and Michiel Bliemer. 2011. “Comparison of
Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms for Optimization of Externalities by Using
Dynamic Traffic Management Measures.” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the
Transportation Research Board 2263 (-1) (December 1): 163–173. doi:10.3141/2263-18.
Science Communication (Use up to 1.800 characters, signs, spaces or line breaks.)
FWO encourages its fellows to disseminate the results of their research widely, and valorize
them where possible. Indicate below whether you think the results of the proposed research
will be suitable to be communicated to a non-expert audience and how you will undertake
such communication.

Science communication to a non-expert audience is and remains part of the standard activities
of the involved research groups. This proposed research project is so societally relevant that it
will naturally deliver material for a variety of dissemination activities in which the groups are
already involved.

 Each researcher describes his/her research in layman’s terms on the group’s website.
 Regularly, PhD researchers publicly present their research during seminars, open to a
broader public of policy makers, companies and organizations.
 The promoters contribute to non-expert journals (The Fifth Conference,
Verkeerskunde, Verkeersspecialist, Tijdschrift Vervoerwetenschap).
 The promoters regularly comment in mass media on actual topics in mobility, traffic
and logistics, such as national radio, TV and newspapers.
 For project and master thesis research, the promoters regularly work together with
industrial partners. Successful research with these partners requires adequate
communication of research and results to a non-expert audience.

Furthermore, C. Tampère is active in the KU Leuven ‘Metaforum’ as one of the traffic and
mobility experts. He co-authored the position paper on person mobility in Flanders in 2011.
In order to promote the new engineering master Verkeer, Logistiek & ITS (VLITS) at KU
Leuven, he participates in activities of popularization of science (“Science Day”, “Science
Week”, “Children’s University” and Olympiades). He also developed, together with Delft
University of Technology, participative experiments teaching the principles of traffic
management and control (see http://www.mech.kuleuven.be/cib/vlits/toeritdosering).

The UGent, KU Leuven and UA groups also have experience in starting spin-off companies
to valorize scientific research results.
Attachment 3: Research Context
 Explain how this project fits in the research activities of your research group. If the
project has already been initiated, please state the progression of your research.

UGent:
The department of Industrial Management of the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture at
UGent has two main research groups working in synergy. The research carried out by the
“Lean Enterprise” group focuses mainly on developing better performing organizational
methods for production, design of production lines and material management. Industrial
Engineering techniques, such as Lean Thinking, are tested on their usability in practice. The
research of the “Supply Networks Design & Logistics” group focuses mainly on developing
effective optimization models and state-of-the-art solution techniques for integrated supply
chain operations and related network design optimization problems. The problems
investigated by the research group range from production planning and scheduling problems,
to warehouse location-allocation problems, to distribution and routing problems and to all
kinds of combinations and integrations of these interacting inbound and outbound logistical
optimization problems.

One of the main research lines of the “Supply Networks Design & Logistics” research group
is the integration and coordination of inventory management and routing in supply chains, to
minimize transportation and inventory costs throughout the supply network. Two former and
two current PhD students, supervised by E.-H. Aghezzaf, worked and are still working on the
integrated inventory management and route scheduling problem and its related variants and
extensions in supply networks. The carried out investigations resulted in some publications
published in leading journals and many conference papers in the field (e.g. Zhong and
Aghezzaf 2011, Aghezzaf et al. 2011, Raa and Aghezzaf 2009, Aghezzaf 2008, Aghezzaf et
al. 2006). Integrating logistics optimization and traffic management systems is a step forward
in this direction, and will significantly broaden the research area of the group and will allow
its members to advance the integration of the various interacting aspects in logistics
optimization and traffic management and control systems. In fact, supply networks
management integrates already many endogenous functions to reach a global optimum. In
this project we will extend this integration to exogenous aspects stemming from different but
interacting systems. This is a challenging and promising research direction.

KU Leuven:
The research group Traffic and Infrastructure of the KU Leuven Centre for Industrial
Management (CIB T&I) specializes in (dynamic) traffic modelling tools supporting research
on three main topics: development and application of uni- and multimodal transportation
network design and optimization models, Intelligent Transportation Systems and external
effects of transportation. The group performed more than a decade of leading research on
various dynamic network traffic models, which resulted, among others, in the development of
the Link Transmission Model (LTM), a dynamic network loading model that is gradually
becoming one of the standards in DTA (Yperman et al., 2006). Since a few years, a new
research line is being elaborated on network traffic control, building on the solid dynamic
traffic modelling background. This research is performed in close cooperation with the KU
Leuven Distrinet group on distributed computer architectures and the Research Centre of
Energy, Transport and Environment (ETE). In these groups combined, a total of 6 PhD’s are
now active in this field (4 of which in CIB V&I), based on funding by IWT and the KU
Leuven research fund. The latter grant (OT/11/068) examines the alignment of individual
travellers’ choices, operational traffic management, strategic control (demand management,
pricing) and infrastructure planning (network design) in a multi-player setting. An IWT
Baekelant grant in cooperation with Tritel (traffic engineering consultant) focuses on the
combined optimization of traffic signal control and public transportation operational control
on corridors with bus priority, a practical instance of the problem tackled more theoretically
and generically in the current proposal.

So far, the focus of the group’s research has been on person mobility. The current proposal
complements this on-going research by linking to optimization in the logistic domain based
on a solid theoretical ground, herewith offering additional optimization opportunities for the
generalized Network Design Problem in a multi-player setting. Whereas the proposal is
framed within the logistics problem, the theoretical basis that is developed is even more
generic and entails any multilateral cooperation in transportation networks with three types of
players: individual non-cooperative users, cooperative users (public transportation, logistics
operators, V2I vehicle fleets or communities), and (one or more) government(s)
orchestrating/controlling the users with consideration of general interests (including those of
the residents, environment etcetera). As such, the proposal is an enabler for future research
both of the applied (e.g. EU framework, with ITS industry) and more theoretical type.

CIB also has a lot of expertise dealing with real-life complex logistical problems. Next to
some more practical oriented journal papers (Vansteenwegen et al. 2011b; Souffriau et al.
2011) and a theoretical journal paper on a new but very relevant variant of the travelling
salesperson problem (Vansteenwegen et al. 2012), most of the journal publications deal with
the design of metaheuristics for routing problems (Souffriau et al. 2010, 2012;
Vansteenwegen et al. 2009a, 2009b), including an invited review paper on the Orienteering
Problem (Vansteenwegen et al. 2011a). This project will also take advantage of this expertise
to investigate the applicability of the results of this project in relevant real-life city logistics,
public transportation and traffic management systems.

UA:
Research in the ANT/OR group mainly focuses on applications in logistics and supply chain
management. Kenneth Sörensen is an internationally renowned expert on optimization using
metaheuristics and has published many papers in international journals, many of which are
related to vehicle routing and other logistics optimization problems. Two examples of
applications are the following: For Toyota Europe, a decision support tool was developed to
optimize the spare parts supply chain (Schittekat & Sörensen, 2009). The tool is still in use on
a daily basis by Toyota. For the Royal Institute Woluwe, rostering software was developed to
schedule the teaching assistants that visit disabled children. Using the software, the total
annual costs of the institute were decreased by 12% (Maya Duque, Sörensen & Goos, 2011a).

The group recently started collaborating with TriVizor, a spin-off of the University of
Antwerp that focuses on supply chain orchestration for horizontal supply chain alliances.
Christine Vanovermeire of ANT/OR recently received an IWT grant to develop planning
tools for such coordinated supply chains, including mechanisms to divide the gains that result
from horizontal supply chain collaboration. Recently, the research group has started to focus
on humanitarian applications and is currently working on a plan to repair the road network of
Haïti after the recent disaster (Maya Duque and Sörensen, 2011b). Another topic that is being
studied within the research group ANT/OR and that is relevant to this project is the location
of intermodal terminals (Sörensen, Vanovermeire and Busschaert, 2012). Here also this
research project extends the research of the group and the existing expertise in the group can
a valuable asset for the project.
  Provide the national and international context of the project. Mention research
collaborations, larger projects, programmes and international networks in which
your research can be situated.

In Flanders, a number of researchers are dealing with logistics routing problems or practical
problems that can be modelled as “rich” routing problems: Gerrit Janssens (UHasselt), Dirk
Cattrysse, Frits Spieksma, Patrick De Causmaecker and Greet Vanden Berghe (KU Leuven),
Wout Dullaert (UA) and Birger Raa (UGent). All promoters involved in this project have
good working contacts with these researchers and meet them regularly, for instance via (the
board meeting of) the Belgian Operations Research Society (SOGESCI-B.V.W.B.) and the
yearly conference of this society (ORBEL) or during international conferences on logistics,
transportation and routing problems such as the EU/MEeting, EURO and TRISTAN. All
promoters also have joint publications with most of these researchers. It is important to
mention that none of these researchers are currently working, or have been working, on
logistics problems integrating traffic management issues. The promoters work together with
all relevant national players in the domain of traffic management, both governmental
(Vlaams Verkeerscentrum, Vlaamse Overheid Expertise Verkeer en Telematica, Mobiris
verkeerscentrum Brussel), private (Tritel, Arcadis, Punch Telematix, Be-Mobile, IBM,
FEBIAC, Transport & Mobility Leuven,…) and research oriented (IBBT, VITO, universities
of Hasselt, Gent, Antwerp, Namur) or mixed (ITS Belgium, Vlaams Instituut Mobiliteit).

Internationally, the promoters meet regularly most of the prominent researchers in logistics
and traffic management during international conferences such as ODYSSEUS, TRISTAN,
EU/MEeting, the Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC), etc. CIB-Traffic &
Infrastructure is a member of the European Association for Research in Transportation
(hEART), member of the COST action ‘Towards Autonomic Road Transport Support
Systems’ (ARTS - TU1102) and associate member of NEARCTIS Network of Excellence for
Advanced Road Cooperative traffic management in the Information Society. It actively
cooperates with TRAIL research school in the Netherlands, Delft University of Technology,
University of York, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven,
TNO research institute the Netherlands. It is currently participating in two EU projects on the
topic of traffic management: MODUM (Models for optimising dynamic urban mobility – EU
FP7) and STEP (ERA-NET road 2 - Short Term Prediction for traffic management).

The promoters have the necessary expertise in modelling and optimizing the complex
problems involved in this project. They have also the necessary contacts with other experts in
the field, both at the national as well as at the international levels, for collaboration and
dissemination of new results on this innovative integration and its underlying challenging
optimization problems. Promoter E.-H. Aghezzaf collaborates frequently with “Institut
français des sciences et technologies des transports, de l’aménagement et des réseaux
(IFSTTAR), France”. He is member of scientific committees of many highly ranked
conferences in the field of Industrial Engineering and logistics. His work on inventory routing
is cited and used by many researchers in the field. Co-promoter C. Tampère is a member of
TRB’s Traffic Flow Theory committee and Transportation Network Modelling Committee
and member of scientific committees of highly ranked conferences in the field of dynamic
network analyses: International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Flow Theory,
International Symposium on Dynamic Traffic Assignment, and Symposium of the European
Association for Research in Transportation. Co-promotors P. Vansteenwegen and K.
Sörensen are internationally renowned experts in metaheuristics and modelling complex
vehicle routing problems. They frequently participate in conferences and meetings on these
subjects. K. Sörensen is co-founder and current coordinator of EU/ME - the Metaheuristics
Community (http://www.metaheuristics.eu), the largest forum for researchers in
metaheuristics. P. Vansteenwegen is member of the EU/ME coordination team and has a
number of publications about the optimization of public transportation.
Attachment 4: Collaboration (Use up to 3.000 characters, signs, spaces or line breaks.)
Describe the collaboration and coordination between the different participating research
groups and the role of the different units and promoters.

The “Supply Networks Design & Logistics” research group of UGent will be leading the
investigations on logistical networks design and optimization part of the project. This
problem involves many interacting and challenging subproblems. A first subproblems is the
one dealing with pure logistic flows optimization in a supply network. It involves
warehousing and inventory management, shipments planning and scheduling, pickup and
delivery operations management, as well as fleet-planning, vehicle routing and scheduling. A
second subproblem is the one dealing with optimization of public and ridesharing flows
within the network. It involves optimizing and managing these flows concurrently with the
pure logistical flows to optimally use the traffic network topology and the available transit
capacity, designed and managed by the traffic controller. The research will be performed by a
PhD researcher at UGent under the supervision of E.-H. Aghezzaf and K. Sörensen.

The Traffic & Infrastructure group of CIB KU Leuven will be leading the investigations on
traffic management formulated as a network design problem. The objective here will mainly
be traffic and management and traffic network redesign. The work is primarily performed by
a PhD researcher, under the supervision of C. Tampère and P. Vansteenwegen, who will on
the one hand be integrated in the research team on network traffic control (see
complementary research projects mentioned in attachment 3); on the other hand, closely and
intensively cooperate with the researchers at UGent and UA.

Cooperation between the research teams at KU Leuven and UGent-UA is structurally

embedded in this research, as the first two work packages WP1 and WP2 require an equal
contribution from both research teams in order to be successful. After the integrated
optimization problem has been formulated and investigated, and the algorithmic details of the
coordination between the two subproblems have been established and tested, both research
teams will turn to WP3 and WP4 in which parallel domain-specific developments are
performed. The coherence between these temporary parallel tracks is guaranteed firstly by the
common starting point from WPs 1 and 2, and secondly by the need to integrate both
approaches again in WP5. Moreover, the team will focus on making the “to be developed”
system potentially applicable for large scale logistics and traffic networks through adaptation
of relevant metaheuristics.

One Phd student will mainly be working at UGent, coached by E.-H. Aghezzaf and K.
Sörensen. The other PhD student will mainly be working at KU Leuven, coached by C.
Tampère and P. Vansteenwegen. Regular research meetings will be organized with the
researchers involved to share ideas and guarantee synergy. For efficiency matters as well, the
participants to these meetings may vary based on the topics to discuss: the promoters and
both PhD students, the promoters, the promoter and the PhD student from the other
institution, etc. Certainly during the first year of the project, all six researchers will meet at
least once every three months. These meeting will be organized by the UGent promoter. The
cooperation will undoubtedly lead to a series of high quality joint publications by the research
team. Moreover, these theoretical developments will be the basis for future project proposals
on real-life cases to illustrate the practical usefulness of our framework. As already
mentioned, examples of these projects could be an IWT project about the valorization of the
opportunities for (city) logistic providers or a European project about the benefits for ride
sharing systems or a project together with De Lijn or MIVB about public transportation.
Attachment 5: Bibliography
Provide a list of up to 5 key peer reviewed publications for each promoter and foreign co-
promoter that are representative for his/her scientific career. Indicate which publications are
relevant for this project using an asterisk. Give full bibliographic details of the publications
and mention the SCI impact factor of the journals (if available).

El-Houssaine Aghezzaf
(*) Zhong Y. and Aghezzaf E.-H. “Combining DC-programming and steepest-descent to
solve the single-vehicle inventory routing problem.” Computers & Industrial
Engineering, (*) Volume 61, Issue 2, Pages 313–321, Published: September 2011.
(*) Aghezzaf, E.-H. Zhong, Y. Raa B. and Mateo M. “Analysis of the single-vehicle cyclic
inventory routing problem.” International Journal of Systems Science, DOI:
10.1080/00207721.2011.564321, Published: April 2011.
(*) Aghezzaf, E.-H., (2008), “Robust distribution planning for supplier-managed inventory
agreements when demand rates and travel times are stationary”. Journal of the Operational
Research Society 59, 1055-1065.
(*) Raa, B, and Aghezzaf, E.-H., (2009), “A practical solution approach for the cyclic
inventory routing problem.” European Journal of Operational Research 192(2): 429-441.
(*) Aghezzaf, E.-H., Raa, B., and Van Landeghem, H., (2006), “Modeling inventory routing
problems in supply chains of high consumption products”. European Journal of
Operational Research 169(3): 1048-1063.

Chris Tampère:
(*) Frederix, R., Viti, F., Tampère, C. (2011). Dynamic Origin-Destination estimation in
congested networks: theoretical findings and implications in practice. Transportmetrica.
(IF: 0.81)
(*) Tampére, Chris M. J., Francesco Viti, and L. H. Immers. 2010. New Developments in
Transport Planning: Advances in Dynamic Transport Assignment. Edward Elgar.
(*) Corthout, R., Tampère, C., Immers, L. (2009). Marginal Incident Computation - An
Efficient Algorithm to Determine Congestion Spillback due to Incidents. Transportation
Research Record (2009), 22-29 (IF: 0.48).
Tampère, C., Corthout, R., Cattrysse, D., Immers, L. (2011). A generic class of first order
node models for dynamic macroscopic simulation of traffic flows. Transportation
Research B, Methodological, 45 (1), 289-309 (IF: 2.09)
(*) Tampère, C., Stada, J., Immers, L. (2009). Calculation of welfare effects of road pricing
on a large scale road network. Technological and Economic Development of Economy,
15 (1), 102-121 (IF: 5.61).

Pieter Vansteenwegen:
(*) Souffriau, W., Vansteenwegen, P., Vanden Berghe, G., and Van Oudheusden, D. The
Multi-Constraint Team Orienteering Problem with Multiple time Windows.
Transportation Science 47, 53-63. (IF 2011: 1.507)
(*) Divsalar, A.,Vansteenwegen, P., and Cattrysse, D. A variable neighbourhood search
method for the Orienteering problem with hotel selection: Accepted for publication in
International Journal of Production Economics (IF 2011: 1.760)
(*) Vansteenwegen, P., Souffriau, W., and Van Oudheusden, D. (2011) The orienteering
problem: a survey. European Journal of Operational Research 209 (1), 1-10, doi:
10.1016/j.ejor.2010.03.045. (IF 2010: 1.815)
(*) Vansteenwegen, P., Souffriau, W., Vanden Berghe, G., and Van Oudheusden, D. (2009)
Iterated Local Search for the Team Orienteering Problem with Time Windows.
 Computers & Operations Research, 36, 3281-3290, doi: 10.1016/j.cor.2009.03.008. (IF
2009: 2.116)
(*)Vansteenwegen, P., and Van Oudheusden, D. (2007) Decreasing the passenger waiting
time for an intercity rail network. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological,
41(4), 478-492, doi: 10.1016/j.trb.2006.06.006. (IF 2007: 1.948)

Kenneth Sörensen:
(*) K. Sörensen, C. Vanovermeire, and S. Busschaert. Efficient metaheuristics to solve the
intermodal terminal location problem. Computers & Operations Research, 39(9):2079–
2090, 2012.
P.A. Maya Duque, K. Sörensen, and P. Goos. A metaheuristic for a teaching assistant
assignment–routing problem. Computers & Operations Research, Accepted for
publication, 2011.
(*) P. Vansteenwegen, W. Souffriau, and K. Sörensen. The traveling salesperson problem
with hotel selection. Journal of the Operational Research Society, Accepted for
publication, 2011.
(*) P. Vansteenwegen, W. Souffriau, and K. Sörensen. Solving the mobile mapping van
problem: A hybrid metaheuristic for capacitated arc routing with soft time windows.
Computers & Operations Research, 37:1870–1876, 2010.
(*) P. Schittekat and K. Sörensen. Supporting 3PL decisions in the automotive industry by
generating diverse solutions to a large-scale location–routing problem. Operations
Research, 57(5):1058 –1067, 2009