Models and tabu search metaheuristics for service network design with asset-balance requirements

This paper focuses on a generic model for service network design, which includes asset positioning and utilization through constraints on asset availability at terminals. We denote these relations as “design-balance constraints” and focus on the design-balanced capacitated multicommodity network design model, a generalization of the capacitated multicommodity network design model generally used in service network design applications. Both arc- and cycle-based formulations for the new model are presented. The paper also proposes a tabu search metaheuristic framework for the arc-based formulation. Results on a wide range of network design problem instances from the literature indicate the proposed method behaves very well in terms of computational efficiency and solution quality.