Arc Routing Problems, Methods, and Applications

The flourishing topic of arc routing presents many challenges that lie at the heart of modern operations research. Written by world-renowned researchers, this book provides a thorough and up-to-date discussion of arc routing. Organized by problem type, the book offers a rigorous treatment of complexity issues, models, algorithms, and applications. It begins with a historical perspective of the field which is followed by three sections that cover: complexity and the Chinese postman and the rural postman problems; the capacitated arc routing problem and routing problems with min-max and profit maximization objectives; and important applications, including meter reading, snow removal, and waste collection. This book will be of interest to practitioners, researchers, and graduate students in operations research, engineering, logistics, mathematics, and business.

Preface; List of figures; List of tables; Preface; 1. A historical perspective on arc routing Á. Corberán and G. Laporte; Part I. Arc Routing Problems with a Single Vehicle: 2. The complexity of arc routing problems R. van Bevern, R. Niedermeier, M. Sorge and M. Weller; 3. The undirected Chinese postman problem G. Laporte; 4. The Chinese postman problem on directed, mixed, and windy graphs Á. Corberán, I. Plana and J. M. Sanchis; 5. The undirected rural postman problem G. Ghiani and G. Laporte; 6. The rural postman problem on directed, mixed, and windy graphs Á. Corberán, I. Plana and J. M. Sanchis; Part II. Arc Routing Problems with Several Vehicles: 7. The CARP: heuristics C. Prins; 8. The CARP: combinatorial lower bounds D. Ahr and G. Reinelt; 9. The capacitated arc routing problem: exact algorithms J. M. Belenguer, E. Benavent and S. Irnich; 10. Variants of the capacitated arc routing problem L. Muyldermans and G. Pang; 11. Arc routing problems with min-max objectives E. Benavent, Á. Corberán, I. Plana and J. M. Sanchis; 12. Arc routing problems with profits C. Archetti and M. G. Speranza; Part III. Applications: 13. Route optimization for meter reading and salt spreading R. Eglese, B. Golden and E. Wasil; 14. Advances in vehicle routing for snow plowing J. F. Campbell, A. Langevin and N. Perrier; 15. Routing in waste collection G. Ghiani, C. Mourão, L. Pinto and D. Vigo; 16. Arc routing applications in newspaper delivery G. Hasle; Index.

Ángel Corberán is a Professor of Statistics and Operations Research at the Faculty of Mathematics of the University of Valencia. He started studying arc routing problems 35 years ago under the supervision of Professor Nicos Christofides of the Imperial College. He has published more than 60 papers in combinatorial optimization and is coordinating editor of Computational Optimization and Applications and a member of the editorial board of Computers and Operations Research, the EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics, and the EURO Journal on Computational Optimization. His research interests concern the study and solution of combinatorial optimization problems, mainly in the routing and location areas.
Gilbert Laporte is Professor of Operations Research at HEC Montréal and holds the Canada Research Chair in Distribution Management. He has been editor of Transportation Science, Computers and Operations Research, and INFOR. He has authored or coauthored fifteen books and more than 450 scientific articles in combinatorial optimization, mostly in the areas of vehicle routing, location, and timetabling. He has received many scientific awards, including the Pergamon Prize in 1987, the 1994 Merit Award of the Canadian Operational Research Society, and the CORS Practice Prize on three occasions. He has been a member of the Royal Society of Canada since 1998 and a Fellow of INFORMS since 2005. In 2009, he received the Robert M. Herman Lifetime Achievement Award in Transportation Science from the Transportation Science and Logistics Society of INFORMS. In 2014, he obtained the Lifetime Achievement in Location Analysis Award from the Section on Location Analysis of INFORMS.