Solving Standard Transport Problems Using LPP Modeling Methods

to Deal with Problems Related COVID-19 in Addis Ababa City

Paper Title: Solving Standard Transport Problems Using LPP Modeling Methods to Deal with
Problems Related COVID-19 in Addis Ababa City
Paper Type: Final Exam Paper
University: Beijing Jiaotong University, China
Major: Traffic and Transport Engineering
Writer: Yalew, Solomon Tesfaye (@22129039)
Degree: Masters
Course: Modelling Methods and Applications in Traffic and Transportation
Course No.: 22004358
Research Paper Submitted To: Professor Liujiang Kang
Year: November 30, 2022

Acknowledgment
My special thanks is to our best Professor Liujiang Kang for his devoted effort made to introduce us
the basic lessons needed for future career and in guiding us in each and every stage of this work.
This work is only possible because of the constant effort on the course of study, so I want to thank
and extend my sincere appreciation for his valuable advice, constant support, commitment,
dedication, encouragement, precious guidance, creative suggestions, critical comments and his
devoted effort made to introduce the basic lessons needed for future career related Modelling
Methods and Applications in Traffic and Transportation. To conclude, I am grateful and wish him
all the bests for his patience and a strong commitment to the advancement of this course and I
accept full responsibility for any errors that may occur.

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Abstract

Since it first emerged, the coronavirus disease epidemic of 2019 (COVID-19) has been spreading
quickly and posing a serious threat to human life. Worldwide, the absence of a proven
vaccination for this condition has resulted in millions of illnesses and hundreds of thousands of
fatalities. Mathematical models are now essential tools for assessing the likelihood and severity
of the disease as well as the kinds of strategic intervention actions that should be implemented to
stop and reduce the intensity of the disease's spread. In this paper, LPP modeling methods to deal
with problems related COVID-19 is analyzed to predict and solve the standard transport problems
to overcome the disease in Addis Ababa city, the capital city of Ethiopia.

Key words: COVID-19, standard transport problems LPP modeling, , Mathematical models

Introduction

A novel Coronavirus (COVID-19),

caused by SARS-CoV-2, emerged from
the Wuhan city of China at the end
of 2019, causing devastating public
health and socio-economic burden
around the world. In the absence of a
safe and effective vaccine or antiviral
for use in humans, control and
mitigation efforts against COVID-19
are

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focussed on using non-pharmaceutical
interventions (aimed at reducing
community transmission of COVID-
19),
such as social (physical)-distancing,
community lockdown, use of face
masks in public, isolation and contact
tracing of confirmed cases and
quarantine of people suspected of being
exposed to COVID-19. We developed
a mathematical model for
understanding the transmission
dynamics and control of COVID-19 in
Nigeria, one
of the main epicenters of COVID-19 in
Africa.
A novel Coronavirus (COVID-19),
caused by SARS-CoV-2, emerged from
the Wuhan city of China at the end
|3
of 2019, causing devastating public
health and socio-economic burden
around the world. In the absence of a
safe and effective vaccine or antiviral
for use in humans, control and
mitigation efforts against COVID-19
are
focussed on using non-pharmaceutical
interventions (aimed at reducing
community transmission of COVID-
19),
such as social (physical)-distancing,
community lockdown, use of face
masks in public, isolation and contact
tracing of confirmed cases and
quarantine of people suspected of being
exposed to COVID-19. We developed
a mathematical model for
understanding the transmission
|4
dynamics and control of COVID-19 in
Nigeria, one
of the main epicenters of COVID-19 in
Africa.
A novel Coronavirus (COVID-19),
caused by SARS-CoV-2, emerged from
the Wuhan city of China at the end
of 2019, causing devastating public
health and socio-economic burden
around the world. In the absence of a
safe and effective vaccine or antiviral
for use in humans, control and
mitigation efforts against COVID-19
are
focussed on using non-pharmaceutical
interventions (aimed at reducing
community transmission of COVID-
19),

|5
such as social (physical)-distancing,
community lockdown, use of face
masks in public, isolation and contact
tracing of confirmed cases and
quarantine of people suspected of being
exposed to COVID-19. We developed
a mathematical model for
understanding the transmission
dynamics and control of COVID-19 in
Nigeria, one
of the main epicenters of COVID-19 in
Africa.
A brand-new coronavirus (COVID-19), brought on by the SARS-CoV-2, has had a disastrous
impact on public health and the global economy. Control and mitigation activities against COVID-
19 are concentrated on employing non-pharmaceutical treatments targeted at limiting community
transmission of COVID-19 in the absence of a safe and effective vaccine and personal protective
equipment available for use in humans. In order to comprehend the dynamics of supply distribution
and the processes involved in decision-making with regard to intervention programs for the
management of illness, mathematical models with optimal control analyses have therefore become a
crucial tool. Ethiopia is now undertaking a variety of measures to contain COVID-19, including a
state of emergency, sealing the nation's borders, and requiring new entrants to spend 14 days in
quarantine. Even though, Ethiopia implementing impeding social and physical distance, hand
washing, and movement constraints to aids in the transmission of COVID-19, the majority of towns
address systems lack of national data, and limited testing equipment make it difficult to implement
pandemic measures like contact tracing and screening that are intended to stop the spread of the

|6
illness. These vulnerabilities likely also worsen and continues to rise the rural and urban towns in
Ethiopia, especially the capital city Addis Ababa. Therefore, the local governance administrations
of Addis Ababa and Ethiopian Health Organization plotted and proposed three medium factories
that produce and supply personal protective equipment to quarantine hospitals located on the four
directions of the city center or four major sub-urban area towns of Addis Ababa city, the capital of
Ethiopia, in order to effectively respond to the specific prevention measures and control the spread
of the COVID-19 pandemic in communities. In order to deal with the issues associated to COVID-
19 in Addis Ababa city and comprehend the changing features and control of COVID-19 in the city,
these papers established a mathematical model for handling typical transport problems using LPP
modeling methods.

Solving Transportation Problem using Linear Programming

The Linear Programming Problems (LPP) is a problem that is concerned with finding the optimal
value of the given linear function. The optimal value can be either maximum value or minimum
value. Here, the given linear function is considered an objective function. The objective function
can contain several variables, which are subjected to the conditions and it has to satisfy the set of
linear inequalities called linear constraints. The linear programming problems can be used to get the
optimal solution for the following scenarios, such as manufacturing problems, diet problems,
transportation problems, allocation problems and so on. Therefore, to understand the transportation
problem, it is necessary to understand the meaning of Linear Programming. Because transportation
problems will use Linear Programming.

Linear programming can be defined as “A mathematical method to allocate scarce resources to

competing activities in an optimal manner when the problem can be expressed using a linear
objective function and linear inequality constraints.” A linear program consists of a set of variables,
a linear objective function indicating the contribution of each variable to the desired outcome, and a
set of linear constraints describing the limits on the values of the variables. The “answer” to a linear
program is a set of values for the problem variables that results in the best largest or smallest value
of the objective function and yet is consistent with all the constraints.

Formulation is the process of translating a real-world problem into a linear program. Once a
problem has been formulated as a linear program, a computer program can be used to solve the
problem. In this regard, solving a linear program is relatively easy. The hardest part about applying
linear programming is formulating the problem and interpreting the solution. Linear programming is
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used to obtain optimal solutions for operations research. Using linear programming allows
researchers to find the best, most economical solution to a problem within all of its limitations, or
constraints. Many fields use linear programming techniques to make their processes more efficient.
These include food and agriculture, engineering, transportation, manufacturing and energy.

 The application areas of different linear programming models are listed here below: -

Applications in Engineering: Engineers also use linear programming to help solve design and
manufacturing problems. For example, in airfoil meshes, engineers seek aerodynamic shape
optimization. This allows for the reduction of the drag coefficient of the airfoil. Constraints may
include lift coefficient, relative maximum thickness, nose radius and trailing edge angle. Shape
optimization seeks to make a shock-free airfoil with a feasible shape. Linear programming therefore
provides engineers with an essential tool in shape optimization.

Transportation Optimization: Transportation systems rely upon linear programming for cost and
time efficiency. Bus and train routes must factor in scheduling, travel time and passengers. Airlines
use linear programming to optimize their profits according to different seat prices and customer
demand. Airlines also use linear programming for pilot scheduling and routes. Optimization via
linear programming increases airlines' efficiency and decreases expenses.

Efficient Manufacturing: Manufacturing requires transforming raw materials into products that
maximize company revenue. Each step of the manufacturing process must work efficiently to reach
that goal. For example, raw materials must past through various machines for set amounts of time in
an assembly line. To maximize profit, a company can use a linear expression of how much raw
material to use. Constraints include the time spent on each machine. Any machines creating
bottlenecks must be addressed. The amount of products made may be affected, in order to maximize
profit based on the raw materials and the time needed.

Energy Industry: Modern energy grid systems incorporate not only traditional electrical systems,
but also renewables such as wind and solar photovoltaic. In order to optimize the electric load
requirements, generators, transmission and distribution lines, and storage must be taken into
account. At the same time, costs must remain sustainable for profits. Linear programming provides
9 a method to optimize the electric power system design. It allows for matching the electric load in
the shortest total distance between generation of the electricity and its demand over time. Linear

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programming can be used to optimize load-matching or to optimize cost, providing a valuable tool
to the energy industry.

Product Mix Problem: A manufacturer has fixed amounts of different resources such as raw
material, labor, and equipment. These resources can be combined to produce any one of several
different products. The quantity of the resource required to produce one unit of the product is
known. The decision maker wishes to produce the combination of products that will maximize total
income.

Production Scheduling: Problem A manufacturer knows that he must supply a given number of
items of a certain product each month for the next n months. They can be produced either in regular
time, subject to a maximum each month, or in overtime. The cost of producing an item during
overtime is greater than during regular time. A storage cost is associated with each item not sold at
the end of the month. The problem is to determine the production schedule that minimizes the sum
of production and storage costs.

Flow Capacity Problem: One or more commodities (e.g., traffic, water, information, cash, etc.) are
flowing from one point to another through a network whose branches have various constraints and
flow capacities. The direction of flow in each branch and the capacity of each branch are known.
The problem is to determine the maximum flow, or capacity of the network.

 Advantages and Disadvantages of LPP

• Advantages: it provides an insight into the problem environment, it makes a scientific and
mathematical analysis of the problem situations, it gives an opportunity to decision makers to
formulate his/her strategies consistent with the constraints and the objectives, it deals with changing
situations (that is, once a plan is arrived through the LPP it can also be reevaluated for changing
conditions).

• Limitations: LPP treats all relationships as linear (but it is not true in real life situations), the
decision variables in some LPP would be meaningful only if they have integer values, all the
parameters in the lpp are assumed to be known constants (but in real life they may not be known
completely or they may be probabilistic and liable to changes), the problems are complex if the
number of variables and constraints are large, LPP deals with only a single objective problems.

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In developing nations like Ethiopia, the network connection is not only poor, but is also insufficient
to support transit trade; hence, the majority of the existing line is mostly not functional. Numerous
people travel about a lot, and there is a lot of import and export of products, neither of which are
well supplied by transportation. In addition to being less common, Ethiopian transportation is also
out of date, has a small capacity, and is insufficient to support transit commerce. Additionally, the
coronavirus pandemic has significantly impacted the health, socio-economic, and political
landscape of Ethiopia and there are no set model studied for the of Ethiopian transportation
problems. As a result, lack of investment in Ethiopian social infrastructure, including in its health
systems, mounting debt and massive corporate tax dodging has left the continent ill-prepared to face
this coming emergency. Without publicly provided health care, people are left exposed to disease.
User fees for accessing health services deny ordinary people their right to health. This is the time to
eliminate them and developing different massive and coordinated modeling method support for the
developing countries, like Ethiopia, to fight with Covid-19 is important. Therefore, the primary goal
of this study Solving Standard Transport Problems Using LPP Modeling Methods to Deal with
Problems Related COVID-19 in Addis Ababa City, Capital city of Ethiopia.

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Description of Study Area

Figure: Description of Study Area Addis Ababa City General Overview (Source: Own
Development)

Transportation Problem
One of the biggest problems that international development and humanitarian groups have ever had
to deal with is the COVID-19 epidemic. As a result of the public health crisis' direct effects on
mortality and health outcomes as well as its indirect effects on social, economic, and political
institutions, there have already been significant repercussions for the world's poor and most
vulnerable. Globally, stringent lock-down, quarantining, and social segregation measures have been
implemented in response to the exponential rise in the number of proven infected cases and
fatalities in order to stop the disease's spread. Even though, Africans countries implementing
impeding social and physical distance, hand washing, and movement constraints to aids in the
transmission of COVID-19, the majority of African nations' address systems lack of national data,
| 11
and limited testing equipment make it difficult to implement pandemic measures like contact tracing
and screening that are intended to stop the spread of the illness. These vulnerabilities likely also
worsen and continues to rise the rural and urban towns in Ethiopia, especially the capital city Addis
Ababa.

Therefore, in order to effectively responding the specific prevention measures and control the
spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in communities the local governance administrations of Addis
Ababa and Ethiopian Health Organization plot and proposed three medium factories that produce
and supply personal protective equipment to quarantine hospital located on the four direction of the
city center or four major sub-urban area towns of Addis Ababa city, the capital of Ethiopia. The
associated supply of each factory and demand of each quarantine hospital is given in below table.
Also, the cost of sending 1 ton of personal protective equipment from a factory to a town depends
on the distance the personal protective equipment must travel. Find an optimum solution for
standard transport problems using LLP to minimize personal protective equipment transportation
costs between Supply Locations (Factories) and Demand Locations
Table: The Associated Supply of Each Factory and Demand of Each Sub-Urban Area Town.
To
Town 1 Town 2 Town 3 Town 4 Supply (Ton)
From
Factory 1 $8 $6 $10 $9 35
Factory 2 $9 $12 $13 $7 50
Factory 3 $14 $9 $16 $5 40
Demand (Ton) 45 20 30 30

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Figure: The Proposed Supply And Demand Locations of Personal Protective Equipment to
Quarantine Hospital of Sub-Urban Area Towns of Addis Ababa City, the Capital of Ethiopia.
(Source: Own Development)

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Overview
Linear programming is a process of optimizing the problems which are subjected to certain
constraints. It means that it is the process of maximizing or minimizing the linear functions under
linear inequality constraints. The problem of solving linear programs is considered as the easiest
one. Linear programming is broadly applied in the field of optimization for many reasons. Many
functional problems in operations analysis can be represented as linear programming problems.
Some special problems of linear programming are such as network flow queries and multi-
commodity flow queries are deemed to be important to have produced much research on functional
algorithms for their solution. Hence, to understand the transportation problem, it is necessary to
understand the meaning of Linear Programming. Because transportation problems will use Linear
Programming. As a result, Linear Programming is basically finding how many goods are
transported from source to destination having a balance between demand and supply and the total
cost of transportation is minimized. When demand and supply is equal, it is called a balanced
problem. When demand and supply is not equal, we convert into the balanced problem by adding a
row or column.

 Linear programming has three important terms,

1. Objective Function: This tells us, what the objective of the problem is. Such as, minimizing the
cost for transporting the goods.
2. Constraints: These are the equations that state the limitation of each variable. Such as we
cannot ship to Customers more than the capacity of the factory. Thus, Supply should be equal
to demand. This is one constraint. Linear programming problems can have no constraints or
more than one constraint.
3. Decision variables: These are the variables that we want to find. Basically, in transportation
problems, decision variables will be how much quantity of product we should ship from source
(Factory) to destination (Customers) to minimize.

 Therefore, Linear Programming Approach to TP: Let,

 m is a set of supply points from which a good is shipped
 n is a set of demand points to which the good is shipped
 i represents a supply point
 j represents a demand point
 ai is the availability at the ith source
 bj is the requirement of the jth destination.
 Cij is the cost of transporting one unit of commodity from the ith
 source to the jth destination
 xij is the quantity of the commodity transported from ith source to the

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  jth destination (i=1, 2, …… m; j=1,2, …..n)

Note: The objective of TP is to minimize the total shipping cost of supplying the destinations with
the required demand from the available supplies at the sources.

Therefore, the mathematical representation of transportation model is:

 Where,
 Xij = number of units shipped from supply point i to demand point j
 ai = supply capacity of supply point i
 bj= demand requirement of demand point j
 Cij= the cost of transporting one unit of commodity from the ith
 source to the jth destination
 Therefore, the problem is to determine the values of xij such that total cost of transportation
is minimized.
 Important Notes:
 The necessary and sufficient condition for a TP to have a feasible solution is if the
total quantity available is the same as the total requirement. And, the TP which
satisfies this condition is called Balanced TP. That is,

 The TP is said to be Unbalanced TP. If

 For any TP, the coefficients of all Xij in the constraints are unity.
 Since both the objective function and the constraints are linear in the TP model, TP
is a special case of LPP.

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Solution
Let xij be the quantity shipped from plant i to town j
1. Decision Variable:
 Since we have to determine how much personal protective equipment is sent from each
factory to each towen;
 Xij = Amount of personal protective equipment at factory i (i =1, 2, 3) and sent to sub-urban
town j (j = 1, 2, 3, 4)

2. Objective Function:
 Since we want to minimize the total cost of shipping from factory to sub-urban town;
 Minimize Z = 8*X11+ 6*X12 +10*X13 + 9*X14 + 9*X21 + 12*X22 +13*X23+ 7*X24
+14*X31 + 9*X32 + 16*X33 + 5*X34

3. Supply Constraints
 Since each supply point has a limited production capacity;
 X11+X12+X13+X14 ≤ 35
 X21+X22+X23+X24 ≤ 50
 X31+X32+X33+X34 ≤ 40
 Further, since a negative amount of personal protective equipment cannot be shipped all Xij’s
must be non-negative; Xij >= 0 (i= 1,2,3; j= 1,2,3,4)
4. Demand Constraints
 X11 + X21 + X31 ≥ 45
 X12 + X22 + X32 ≥ 20
 X13 + X23 + X33 ≥ 30
 X14 + X24 + X34 ≥ 30

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  Therefore, the formulation of TPP is
Min Z = 8x11 + 6x12 + 10x13 + 9x14 + 9x21 + 12x22 + 13x23 + 7x24 + 14x31 + 9x32 +16x33 + 5x34

 Subjected to

X11 + X12 + X13 + X14 ≤ 35

X21 + X22 + X23 + X24 ≤ 50
S.T X31 + X32 + X33 + X34 ≤ 40
X11 + X21 + X31 ≥ 45
X12 + X22 + X32 ≥ 20
X13 + X23 + X33 ≥ 30
X14 + X24 + X34 ≥ 30
All Xij >= 0 (i= factory 1, factory 2, factory 3) & (j= town 1, town 2, town 3, town
4)

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IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimizer

 The ILOG CPLEX Network Optimizer is a highly efficient implementation of the primal
simplex technique adapted to take advantage of this special structure in more efficient way
to finding, ease of calculus, and it can be used as an alternative to previous methods of the
primary basic solution. In particular, no basis factoring occurs. IBM ILOG CPLEX
Optimizer is a tool for Solving Standard Transport Problems Using LPP Modeling Methods
to Deal with Problems Related COVID-19 in Addis Ababa City is shown the following
below figures:

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CPLEX also can solve several extensions to LP:

 Network Flow problems, a special case of LP that CPLEX can solve much faster by
exploiting the problem structure.
 Quadratic Programming (QP) problems, where the LP objective function is expanded to
include quadratic terms.
 Quadratic Constrained Programming (QCP) problems that include quadratic terms among
the constraints. In fact, CPLEX can solve Second Order Cone Programming (SOCP)
problems.
 Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) problems, where any or all of the LP, QP, or QCP
variables are further restricted to take integer values in the optimal solution and where MIP
itself is extended to include constructs like Special Ordered Sets (SOS) and semi-continuous
variables

Conclusion
This paper have analyzed the problem and solving standard transport problems using LPP modeling
methods to deal with problems related COVID-19 in Addis Ababa City and ILOG CPLEX
Network Optimizer is implemented to take advantage of this special structure. Analyses done in
order to effectively responding the specific prevention measures and control the spread of the
COVID-19 pandemic in Addis Ababa City communities on proposed three medium factories that
produce and supply personal protective equipment to quarantine hospital located on the four
direction of the city center or four major sub-urban area towns to solve the standard transport
problems related with COVID-19 in the city. As a result, a review of the relevant of knowledge
revealed the need for optimization techniques to address the issue in transport problems related
COVID-19 to provide an optimization-based on framework matching supply and demand of
minimum cost is essential. Therefore, the output of this paper will be helpful to academic
knowledge and enable understanding of the subject matter as it paves the way for further
investigation on the issues and it indicates constraints, low standards, and challenges to related
sectors and concerned offices for efficient budget allocation and resource management.

| 25
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