497 / 2024-04-25 16:08:44

A Location-or-routing Problem Considering Choices Across Different Customer Types

Location,Routing,Multinomial logit model,Customer classification

This paper studies a generalized location-or-routing problem that incorporates the preferences of different customer types. In this problem, there is a set of facility locations to choose from to open, as well as a known distribution of customer points and corresponding needs. In the LORP, we need to decide where to open facilities and how to design shuttle routes for transporting specific customers. Owing to constraints on shuttle bus resources, only selected customers can be transported to the facility for service, while others must travel to the facilities on their own to receive services. Therefore, it may result in customer churn. We classify customers into three types based on the distance to open facility locations, and prioritize shuttle transport for those not covered by opened facilities, aiming to reduce service costs while serving as many customers as possible. We formulate this problem into a mixed linear integer programming framework and propose a branch and price algorithm to efficiently solve the model.