Research Plan on: Smart Traffic Routing (Supervisor: Dr.

Kóczy
Á. László )
Shihab Hasan Chowdhury1

1 Background
The endless prospect of trying out and the instantaneous knowledge of the outcome that inspires one for
further analysis of a rationale in question, is what I find most appealing about Data and Management
Science. Keeping up an inquisitive and exploratory attitude, I believe, directs to a persistent learning
process. This approach enhances the already enormous potential for innovation that exists in this field. I
am looking for PhD opportunity to smear my knowledge and skills in my areas of interest. I believe, PhD
opportunity in BME Doctoral School of Business and Management will be a ground-breaking milestone of
my life as well as will also serve to give route to my goal of career pathway as a research professional at
an academic or commercial, research-oriented organization.

Attributable to the riveting hitches in Traffic Routing Problem, this area of study appeals to solid in-
terest of many researchers and experts. One of the area of Traffic Routing Problem is Inventory Routing
Problem (IRP). Attributable to the riveting hitches in Inventory Routing Problem (IRP), this area of
study appeals to solid interest of many researchers and experts. The problem dates back to 1980s but
the potential difference between IRP and classical vehicle routing problems is that the vendor synchro-
nizes the inventories of the customers, forecasting each customer’s imminent consumption over the time;
and deciding how much and when inventories should be restocked by routing vehicles. In logistics, this
strategy is termed as Vendor Management Inventory (VMI). There are routing constraints that addresses
the issue of defining set of routes visiting customers to deliver definite amount of product with a view to
maintaining satisfactory inventory levels at all customers as well as complying with the safety and regu-
latory constraints. Moreover, the issues of product supply disruption demand forecast unreliability and
unavailability of transportation resources might be some point of exploration. Hyper-heuristics are a set
of techniques that work on the space of heuristics as opposed to directly searching the space of solutions.
In order to let hyper-heuristics to be configured, tuned, adapted and optimized in a better way by itself
statistical techniques like “Data Science”, machine learning is now being endeavored.

During my last year of undergraduate studies, I was motivated to carry research works in Neural Net-
work, Pattern Recognition as well as optimization. Through this aspiration, I was enabled to publish
two publications on Pattern Matching and Ensemble Classification on Block Learning. For this purpose,
I gained experience on Data Analysis, Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition. Aftermath, I swung
my career to other areas but kept my appetite to be engaged with Data Science and Artificial Intelligence
inside me. For the research works stated I had to gain thorough understanding on optimization algorithms,
analysis, optimization and data mining tools like Python, SQL, MATLAB, R, Oracle etc. Besides, from
my previous experience, I got reasonable understanding on C/C++, Java, Prolog, PHP, C/ASP.NET and
many other tools. This is obvious that, Lancaster University, with its cutting-edge research in the area of
Management Science, particularly in Optimization and Heuristics, is the ideal institution to support my
research pursuit.

1
MSc. Quantitative Finance, Department of Accounting & Finance, University of Lancaster,UK. shihab2608@gmail.com

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2 Literature review
In order to understand IRP at first, I had to thoroughly survey literature in these specific fields and some
other related fields. There are ideas of centralized supply-chain management (SCM), such as the vendor-
managed inventory (VMI) that are also vastly accepted in many supply-chain environments. The idea of
centralized supply-chain management [1] is that suppliers get access to the customers’ inventory positions
and make the essential replenishment decisions where Genetic Algorithm was use to search structure hav-
ing elite preservation. The algorithm incepted by generating the initial population using the randomized
variety of the heuristic ATCH. The size of the population remains constant throughout the application
and then, the improvement phase followed by applying the designed crossover and mutation operators
for a randomly selected pair of solutions from current population. An appropriate genetic representation
that emphases on the delivery schedule represented in the form of a 2D matrix is designed. In the Ge-
netic Algorithm construction phase, a randomized version of previously developed construction heuristic
was being used. In the improvement phase of the algorithm involved two random neighborhood search
mechanisms, the crossover as well as mutation operations, suitable designs were developed. Ahmed L,
Mumford C, Kheiri A [2] evaluated the performance of a set of selection hyper-heuristics on the route
design problem of vehicle networks, with the goal of minimizing the passengers’ travel time, and the costs
of operators. Each selection of hyper-heuristic is empirically tested on a set of benchmark instances that
could be compared statistically to other selection hyper-heuristics to determine the best approach. Then,
a meta-heuristics approach [3] was illustrated for the solution of IRP combining a tabu search scheme
and ad hoc designed mixed integer programming (MIP) models. Multiple day aspect and the choice of
delivery day in inventory routing problems surveyed by [4] where the key difference was that, in inventory
routing models the inventory usually is managed at the delivery location and typically estimated by the
routing operator and goods are not relocated, nor they are in shortfall. Inventory inside the vehicles is
simple to manage because loading takes place only at the depot, although unloading takes place during the
route. The inherent difficulty of such models comes from the combination of demand forecasting (leading
to estimation of inventory) with routing and scheduling decisions. As per my latest survey [5] has defined
a two-phased approach where the construction phase has been replenished in contrast to the previous
researches where introduction, improvement and construction three phases were used in case of modeling
solution to design heuristics. Furthermore, the sequence-based selection hyper-heuristic (SSHH) method
blends a set of nineteen fairly simple low-level domain-specific heuristics. The proposed approach aimed to
exploit several low-level heuristics, each LLH efforts to enhance an aspect of the quality of their solution
during the optimization process. Conventionally, selection hyper-heuristics identify two main stages, a
selection stage to pick a suitable heuristic and apply it to the candidate solution[6], and a move acceptance
stage to decide whether to accept or reject the produced solution. The sequence-based selection hyper-
heuristic substituted so, the first stage of the traditional selection hyper-heuristic framework in order to
select series of heuristics instead of a single heuristic. Therefore, it is obvious that, selection of hyper-
heuristics components is very essential along with the parameter’s setup. Different settings will provide
different results or screen different performance across problem domains as well as on different instances
within the same domain. To get clear concept on IRP, hyper-heuristics was important to realize clearly.
Hyper-heuristics are a set of techniques that operate as well as explore on the space of heuristics as opposed
to directly searching the space of solutions.

Form the above survey from many renowned researchers; it seems to me that, there is no exact method that
can be excluded. Even, on the other hand, this is also true that specifically one method is suitable. From
the literature, it is found that, some of the problems in IRP are being solved through hyper-heuristics,
some are by Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) and there is opportunity to explore with Meta-
heuristics, too. Though MILP is essentially an exact method and such methods find optimal solutions,
but normally work with small-sized problems hence they fail with large problems. This is because, Meta-
heuristics is a higher-level procedure or heuristic designed to find, generate, or select a heuristic that may

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provide a sufficiently good solution to an optimization problem, especially with incomplete or imperfect
information or limited computation capacity. In addition, in combinatorial optimization, by searching over
a large set of feasible solutions, Meta-heuristics can often find good solutions with less computational effort
than optimization algorithms, iterative methods, or simple heuristics. So, obviously, Meta-heuristics can
be considered as apposite means of problem solving in research works.

3 Research Problem
From the literature survey described above, it is obvious that there are remarkable researches on IRP. In
addition, the researchers have covered range of areas of IRP and VRP. Still, according do my understanding,
there are some key research points that can be valued for further evaluation:

1. There are ideas of centralized supply-chain management (SCM). How hyper-heuristics can be effective
on decentralized structure? This is because, in a decentralized supply chain, specific units make
decisions based on local information. Such a procedure makes it easy to incentivize players to act
in co-operation with making the entire supply chain efficient. Additionally, How Genetic Algorithm
based heuristics can solve problem like in an outbound logistics where the demand pattern from one
period to the other changed significantly.

2. How we can address the problem of Products Supply Disruption? We have considered mostly the
demand of customers and transportation networks, cost optimization etc. However, supply of product
is a vital factor of product chain. If this problem in incorporated what will be the strategy to resolve?

3. There is another issue that may be considered, that is: demand forecast unreliability for some
customers. How to incorporate this in case of selection of heuristics and what will be the probable
impact on the cost. What can we solve the problem in case of stock out and venting?

4. Transportation resources may be unavailable sometimes for example, due to maintenance. How we
can address this problem in prevailing research works? Besides, how to approach towards hybridized
genetic algorithms with sequence-based hyper-heuristics as population-based approaches on problem
domain?

To my best knowledge, I have not found any source where these problems are being tackled. So, far I have
studied literature under this field, I have not found suitable solution addressing to these issues. However,
the questions may not be limited, extensive research and study may give new orientation to some of the
questions.

4 Data & Methodology

For any research, Data Collection from verifiable source is essential step. Here, I am hopeful that, prospec-
tive organizations will assist us by giving data which will be further used for analysis and heuristic design.
The main focus of my project is to address some of the key areas that can be adopted into IRP. In order
to implement this issue, I have to be adept at Artificial Intelligence specifically Neural Networks which I
have covered preliminaries at my undergraduate with coding experiences of the intended algorithm to be
used in this research. In addition to that, optimization tools are mandatory here. As optimization tools,
I prefer any Object-Oriented Programming Language (OOPL) and different optimization tools in some
cases. Besides, in some cases I have to collect raw data from several sources. For such data analysis I may
have to use Structured Query Language (SQL) because SQL is a powerful tool for query processing. In
fact, SQL can be used in any Object-Oriented Programming Language also. If my supervisor wants to use
me any other tools that I was not familiar previously, definitely, I will be quickly accustomed with that

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tools. Actually, I am keen to learn and use different tools because of the fact that, to be adapted with the
pace of technology.

5 Expected Results
The expected result and conclusion that can address the question raised in the project. Expected result can
include descriptive conclusion, ideally illustrated in one or few maps (graphics).

6 Time Line
As I am aware of, there is a time-frame of PhD courses in terms of funding and other matters. So, my
target is to use time efficiently. If I look at the stages of the total research process, time frame can be
prescribed as below, though this is a tentative one because in case of research many conditions can be
changed within a blinking of an eye.

Figure 1: Proportion of Time

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 Above all things there may be some unavoidable circumstances that may have significant effect of that
timeline, but I am enthusiastic enough to cover up any loss of time with the assistance of my supervisor
and committed to act as per the instruction of him/her.

Figure 2: Grantt Chart

7 References
[1] Abdelmaguid, F. Tamer, Dessouky & M. Maged A genetic algorithm approach to the integrated
inventory-distribution problem International Journal of Production Research , Volume-44(21), pages
4445–4464, 2007.

[2] Kheiri, Ahmed, Heuristic Sequence Selection for Inventory Routing Problem, INFORMS, volume-54(2),
2000

[3] Archetti, C. & Bertazzi, Luca & Hertz, Alain & Speranza, M.Grazia. (2012). A Hybrid Heuristic for
an Inventory Routing Problem. INFORMS Journal on Computing. Volume–24.

[4] Kheiri, Ahmed, et al. Tackling a VRP challenge to redistribute scarce equipment within time windows
using metaheuristic algorithms.” EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics 8.5 (2019): 561-595.

[5] Kheiri, A. Heuristic sequence selection for inventory routing problem In: Transportation Science. 54,
2, p. 302-312, 2020.

[6] Coelho LC, Cordeau JF, Laporte G, 2012 The inventory-routing problem with transshipment. Com-
puters Operations Research 39(11):2537-2548.