Designing a Bi-objective Capacitated Single-Allocation Incomplete Hub Network Considering an Elastic Demand

This paper presents a bi-objective capacitated hub arc location problem with single assignment for designing a metro network with an elastic demand. In the literature, it is widely supposed that the network created with the hub nodes is complete. In this paper, this assumption is relaxed. In real life problems, especially for locating a metro hub, the demand is dependent on the utility that is offered by each hub; hence, the demand is assumed to be elastic in this paper. The presented model also has the ability to compute the number of trains between each pair of two hubs. The objectives of this model are to maximize the benefits of transportation and establishment of the hub facilities while minimizing the total transportation time. Furthermore, the bi-objective model is converted into a single objective one by the TH method. The significance of applicability of the developed model is demonstrated by a number of numerical experiments and some sensitivity analyses on the data taken from the Qom city monorail project.