A Reliable Multi-objective p-hub Covering Location Problem Considering of Hubs Capabilities

Abstract

In the facility location problem usually reducing total transferring cost and time are common objectives. Designing of a network with hub facilities can improve network efficiency. In this study a new model is presented for P-hub covering location problem. In the p-hub covering problem it is attempted to locate hubs and allocate customers to established hubs while allocated nodes to hubs are inside of related hubs covering radius. In this paper we attempt to consider capability of established hubs according to their corresponding capabilities on sorting operation. Moreover the reliability of network is considered in the proposed model as an objective. The proposed multi objective model is solved by ε-constraint algorithm for small size instances. For large scale instances a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) is presented to obtain Pareto solutions and its performance is compared with results of ε-constraint algorithm. The model and solution algorithm were analyzed by more numerical examples and some sensitivity analysis have been done. The analysis confirms that the network extracted by the proposed model is more efficient than classic networks.