Bi-objective capacitated hub location problem

Hub and spoke network configuration play an important role in the design and management of many-to-many distribution systems. Distribution cost and swiftness are two very important, and at the same time conflicting, criteria in the design of such networks. In this paper we consider the biobjective capacitated hub location problem. The first objective is to minimize the total cost of location and transportation (cost measure), while the second one is to minimize the maximum travel time for the commodities (swiftness measure). A novel integer programming formulation of the problem is presented and tested on a set of real data to show its validity. Finally, a Pareto optimal curve is extracted which provides the managers with a valuable decision making tool to select from among a spectrum of network configurations according to their preferences