Scope
The project addresses transport companies, and specifically the problem of optimally allocating resources (drivers, vehicles and so on) on a daily basis between points of interest, so that each day the backlog (pending deliveries awaiting service) and the average delivery time remain bounded, and possibly controlled, while other operational criteria such as fuel cost and fleet maintenance are minimised.
The VELOS project (https://velos.di.ionio.gr/) sets out to address this problem in the setting of transport companies through a novel approach based on the backpressure routing and scheduling algorithm. The algorithm has been used extensively in communication networks and road networks to reduce congestion of data or vehicle traffic. In VELOS it is applied to the problem of resource allocation and stability, together with additional optimisation goals for the operation and performance of small and medium sized transport companies.
Objectives
- Development of an optimisation algorithm for the operation of a transport company based on the backpressure technique.
- Design and development of an information system for the management of transport operations and additional performance requirements and criteria.
- Performance study of the algorithm under real world conditions.
- Development of a general methodological framework for the use of backpressure algorithms in supply chain and transport applications.
- Development of a business model for exploiting the VELOS information system, with a view to extending it to larger companies.