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Online Vehicle Routing: The Edge of Optimization in Large-Scale Applications

Author

Listed:
  • Dimitris Bertsimas

    (Operations Research Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142)

  • Patrick Jaillet,

    (Operations Research Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142)

  • Sébastien Martin

    (Operations Research Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142)

Abstract

With the emergence of ride-sharing companies that offer transportation on demand at a large scale and the increasing availability of corresponding demand data sets, new challenges arise to develop routing optimization algorithms that can solve massive problems in real time. In this paper, we develop an optimization framework, coupled with a novel and generalizable backbone algorithm, that allows us to dispatch in real time thousands of taxis serving more than 25,000 customers per hour. We provide evidence from historical simulations using New York City routing network and yellow cab data to show that our algorithms improve upon the performance of existing heuristics in such real-world settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Dimitris Bertsimas & Patrick Jaillet, & Sébastien Martin, 2019. "Online Vehicle Routing: The Edge of Optimization in Large-Scale Applications," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(1), pages 143-162, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:67:y:2019:i:1:p:143-162
    DOI: 10.1287/opre.2018.1763
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    References listed on IDEAS

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