The hub covering flow problem

Abstract

The hub covering flow problem (HCFP) seeks to find the minimal cost hub-and-spoke network by optimally locating hub nodes and assigning non-hub nodes to the hub nodes subject to a coverage constraint. The cost of establishing such a hub network is based on a fixed cost of opening hubs and the cost of transporting demand flow through the network. We also present an extension called the multi-aircraft HCFP. The results from computational experiments are presented and discussed.

Keywords:

• hub location
• hub cover
• location
• air transport application
• integer programming

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the two anonymous referees for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions of the paper.