Scientific Programme > Plenary Sessions

Approximate Algorithms for Recent Applications of Logistics Under Uncertainty

Abstract: Dealing with uncertainty in logistics applications remains a fundamental and lasting challenge. Three dimensions are commonly considered to be stochastic: travel times, demands, and customers. In this talk we propose approximate algorithms dealing with these dimensions in applications using auspicious technologies. We explore integrating estimated time of arrivals readings of trucks, in quasi real-time, into the problem of assigning inbound trucks to docks of a large warehouse. We formulate the problem as a partially-observed semi-Markov decision process and propose a rollout algorithm for it, which we validate by information relaxation performance bounds. We then discuss problems with a two-level decision structure, where the second-level decision problem is itself a complex stochastic dynamic routing problem with stochastic demands. We cast the first stage in a local search algorithm, which must evaluate the second-level numerous times. To this end, we propose a tailored deep Q network-based algorithm. Lastly, we analyze the strategic problem of establishing the size of an electric vehicle (EV) fleet in a given urban setting, where we capture the daily uncertainty in customer locations via continuous approximation. In particular, we account for EV features such as limited range, non-linear charging and energy pricing functions.

Short Bio: Ola Jabali is an associate professor at the operations research and discrete optimization group at Politecnico di Milano. Her research interests deal with modelling and solving realistic problems arising in transportation, production and logistics. She is an affiliated professor at HEC Montréal, Canada, and a collaborating member of the Interuniversity Research Centre on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation (CIRRELT). She obtained her MSc. in industrial engineering from the Technion in 2006, and her Ph.D. in the same field in 2010 from the Eindhoven University of Technology. From 2012 untill 2016 she was an assistant professor at the Department of Logistics and Operations Management at HEC Montréal. In 2016 she obtained the “Rita Levi Montalcini” fellowship for young researchers by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research. In 2023 she received the Stella Dafermos Mid-Career Award, by the Transportation Science and Logistics society of INFORMS. She is associate editor for INFOR: Information Systems and Operational Research, Part C: Emerging Technologies, and Transportation Research and Transportation Science.