Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley

This paper proposes an algorithm that automatically translates the "continuum approximation" (CA) recipes for location problems into discrete designs. It is applied to terminal systems but can also be used for other logistics problems. The study also systematically compares the logistics costs predicted by the CA approach with the actual costs for discrete designs obtained with the automated procedure. Results show that the algorithm systematically finds a practical set of discrete terminal locations with a cost very close to that predicted. The paper also gives conditions under which the CA cost formulae are a tight lower bound for the exact minimal costs.