UC Irvine Institute of Transportation Studies

Set Covering problems find the optimal provision of service locations while guaranteeing an acceptable level of accessibility for every demand points in a given area. Other than reliance on static,exogenously-imposed accessibility measures, these problems either exclude substantive infrastructure-vehicle interactions or only include fragmented infrastructure-vehicle interactions related to the routing considerations of households seeking refueling service as a requirement of performing routine, daily activities. Here, we address this problem by coupling a Location-Routing Problem (LRP) that uses the set covering model as a location strategy to the Household Activity Pattern Problem (HAPP) as the mixed integer scheduling and routing model that optimizes households’ participation in out-of-home activities. The problem addressed includes multiple decision makers: the public/private sector as the service provider, and the collection of individual households that make their own routing decisions to perform a given set of “out-of-home activities” together with a visit to one of the service locations. A solution method that does not necessarily require the full information of the coverage matrix is developed to reduce the number of HAPPs that needs to be solved. The performance of the algorithm, as well as comparison of the results to the set covering model, is presented. Although the application is focused on identifying the optimal locations of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle (HFCV) refueling stations, this proposed formulation can be used as a facility location strategy for any service activity that is generally toured with other activities.