Robust and Reliable Hub Location Problem Considering Facility Disruption and Uncertainty

In the hub location problems, it is usually assumed that hubs are always available, while it may be out of reach by natural disasters, economic disturbances and terrorist operations. In addition, considering the uncertainty in model parameters seems necessary, given the unstable condition of the real world. Many studies have considered the two problems separately. The current paper proposed a robust and reliable model for hub and spoke network design simultaneously considered uncertainty and disruptions. The proposed model is modeled based on a robust optimization approach to protect the network against uncertainty. In addition, a mixed integer linear programming model with augmented p-robust constraints to control network reliability among suggested disruption scenarios is proposed. The proposed objective function is minimizing normal cost (network cost when there is no disruption), while reducing the risk of disruption by p -robustness criterion. There are a number of numerical examples intended to study the robustness and reliability of the network, as well as a comparative analysis for the study of augmented p-robust criterion performance and other robust traditional criteria.

Keywords:

Hub Location , Facility Disruption , Uncertainty , Reliability , Robust Optimization (RO) , P-robust criterion