Transportation & Production Networks

The group is concerned with solving real world problems in the areas of transportation, production, or supply networks by making innovative use and enhancements of modeling techniques. A core competence of this group is in supporting the problem solving process from the conceptualization phase to the model-building and the implementation phase (operations engineering).

A common aspect of all projects is that they deal with processes that take place on networks. We therefore work towards understanding how these networked processes function, how they can be designed, controlled and coordinated. The main challenge is to cope with the complex dynamics while at the same time being constrained by various restrictions, such as limited time, incomplete state information, stochastic disturbances, or only local influence of control actions.

Our goal is to design mechanisms and develop algorithms that work well under these restrictions. For instance in rail traffic, when disturbances occur, a scheduler may have less than a minute to react and information on the state of other trains may be incomplete. Another example is a freight transportation company that has to revise its delivery routes frequently within one day since new orders arrive stochastically.

Members

• Dr. Marco Laumanns
• Dr. Rico Zenklusen
• Martin Fuchsberger
• Michael Guarisco
• Kaspar Schüpbach
• Sabrina Wiedersheim

Former Members

• Christian Balderer
• Dr. Dan Burkolter
• Dr. Gabrio Caimi
• Dr. Thomas Herrmann
• Dr. Heinz Ulrich