The latest arrival hub location problem for cargo delivery systems with stopovers

In this paper, we concentrate on the service structure of ground-transportation based cargo delivery companies. The transient times that arise from nonsimultaneous arrivals at hubs (typically spent for unloading, loading, and sorting operations) can constitute a significant portion of the total delivery time for cargo delivery systems. The latest arrival hub location problem is a new minimax model that focuses on the minimization of the arrival time of the last item to arrive, taking into account journey times as well as the transient times at hubs. We first focus on a typical cargo delivery firm operating in Turkey and observe that stopovers are essential components of a ground-based cargo delivery system. The existing formulations of the hub location problem in the literature do not allow stopovers since they assume direct connections between demand centers and hubs. In this paper, we propose a generic mathematical model, which allows stopovers for the latest arrival hub location problem. We improve the model using valid inequalities and lifting. We present computational results using data from the US and Turkey. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.