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Outputs (23)

Nature Inspired Optimisation for Delivery Problems: From Theory to the Real World (2022)
Book
Urquhart, N. (2022). Nature Inspired Optimisation for Delivery Problems: From Theory to the Real World. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98108-2

This book explains classic routing and transportation problems and solutions, before offering insights based on successful real-world solutions. The chapters in Part I introduce and explain the traveling salesperson problem (TSP), vehicle routing pro... Read More about Nature Inspired Optimisation for Delivery Problems: From Theory to the Real World.

Simulating Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problems with Athos (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Hoffman, B., Guckert, M., Chalmers, K., & Urquhart, N. (2019, June). Simulating Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problems with Athos. Presented at ECMS2019: 33rd INTERNATIONAL ECMS CONFERENCE ON MODELLING AND SIMULATION, Napoli, Italy

Complex routing problems, such as vehicle routing problems with additional constraints, are both hard to solve and hard to express in a form that is accessible to the human expert and at the same time processible by a computer system that is supposed... Read More about Simulating Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problems with Athos.

Simulating the actions of commuters using a multi-agent system (2019)
Journal Article
Urquhart, N., Powers, S., Wall, Z., Fonzone, A., Ge, J., & Polhill, G. (2019). Simulating the actions of commuters using a multi-agent system. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 22(2), https://doi.org/10.18564/jasss.4007

The activity of commuting to and from a place of work affects not only those travelling but also wider society through their contribution to congestion and pollution. It is desirable to have a means of simulating commuting in order to allow organisat... Read More about Simulating the actions of commuters using a multi-agent system.

Athos - A Model Driven Approach to Describe and Solve Optimisation Problems (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Hoffman, B., Chalmers, K., Urquhart, N., & Guckert, M. (2019). Athos - A Model Driven Approach to Describe and Solve Optimisation Problems. . https://doi.org/10.1145/3300111.3300114

Implementing solutions for optimisation problems with general purpose high-level programming languages is a time consuming task that can only be carried out by professional software developers who typically are not domain experts. We address this pro... Read More about Athos - A Model Driven Approach to Describe and Solve Optimisation Problems.

A new rich vehicle routing problem model and benchmark resource (2018)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Sim, K., Hart, E., Urquhart, N. B., & Pigden, T. (2015, September). A new rich vehicle routing problem model and benchmark resource. Presented at International Conference on Evolutionary and Deterministic Methods for Design, Optimization and Control with Applications to Industrial and Societal Problems, EUROGEN-2015, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

We describe a new rich VRP model that captures many real-world constraints, following a recently proposed taxonomy that addresses both scenario and problem physical characteristics. The model is used to generate 4800 new instances of rich VRPs which... Read More about A new rich vehicle routing problem model and benchmark resource.

Towards reducing complexity of multi-agent simulations by applying model-driven techniques (2018)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Hoffman, B., Chalmers, K., Urquhart, N., Farrenkopf, T., & Guckert, M. (2018, June). Towards reducing complexity of multi-agent simulations by applying model-driven techniques. Presented at International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems PAAMS 2018, Toledo, Spain

Creating multi-agent simulations is a challenging task often requiring programming skills at the professional software developer level. Model driven methods of software development are an appropriate tool for reducing the complexity of the developmen... Read More about Towards reducing complexity of multi-agent simulations by applying model-driven techniques.

A Domain-Specific Language For Routing Problems (2018)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Hoffmann, B., Guckert, M., Farrenkopf, T., Chalmers, K., & Urquhart, N. (2018, May). A Domain-Specific Language For Routing Problems. Presented at 32nd Conference on Modelling and Simulation

Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) are commonly used as benchmark optimisation problems and they also have many applications in industry. Using agent-based approaches to solve VRPs allows the analysis of dynamic VRP instances that incorporate congestion... Read More about A Domain-Specific Language For Routing Problems.

Demo paper: AGADE - Scalability of ontology based agent simulations (2016)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Farrenkopf, T., Guckert, M., Urquhart, N. B., & Wells, S. (2016, June). Demo paper: AGADE - Scalability of ontology based agent simulations. Presented at 14th International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, Sevilla, Spain

Simulations of real world scenarios often require considerably
large numbers of agents. With increasing level of detail and resolution
in the underlying models machine limitations both in the aspect of
memory and computing power are reached. Even... Read More about Demo paper: AGADE - Scalability of ontology based agent simulations.

Multi-Modal employee routing with time windows in an urban environment. (2015)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Urquhart, N. B., Hart, E., & Judson, A. (2015, July). Multi-Modal employee routing with time windows in an urban environment

An urban environment provides a number of challenges and opportunities
for organisations faced with the task of scheduling a mobile
workforce. Given a mixed set of public and private transportation
and a list of scheduling constraints, we seek to... Read More about Multi-Modal employee routing with time windows in an urban environment..

Creating optimised employee travel plans. (2015)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Urquhart, N. B., & Hart, E. (2015, September). Creating optimised employee travel plans. Paper presented at International Conference on Evolutionary and Deterministic Methods for Design, Optimization and Control with Applications to Industrial and Societal Problems, EUROGEN-2015

Optimising the scheduling and planning of urban milk deliveries. (2015)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Urquhart, N. B. (2015, April). Optimising the scheduling and planning of urban milk deliveries. Presented at European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation EvoApplications 2015, Copenhagen, Denmark

This paper investigates the optimisation of the delivery of dairy products to households in three urban areas. The requirement for the optimisation to be part of the existing business process has determined the approach taken. The solution is maintai... Read More about Optimising the scheduling and planning of urban milk deliveries..

AGADE how individual guidance leads to group behaviour and how this can be simulated (2014)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Farrenkopf, T., Guckert, M., Hoffmann, B., & Urquhart, N. B. (2014, September). AGADE how individual guidance leads to group behaviour and how this can be simulated. Presented at 12th German Conference, MATES 2014, Stuttgart, Germany

In this paper we will demonstrate how BDI agents can be used to model individuals as participants in social structures where they act as potential buyers in a simple mobile phone market simulation. The simulation presented here is run in AGADE (Agile... Read More about AGADE how individual guidance leads to group behaviour and how this can be simulated.

A real-world employee scheduling and routing application. (2014)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Hart, E., Sim, K., & Urquhart, N. B. (2014, July). A real-world employee scheduling and routing application. Presented at GECCO 2014

We describe a hyper-heuristic application developed for a client to find quick, acceptable solutions to Workforce Schedul- ing and Routing problems. An interactive fitness function controlled by the user enables five different objectives to be weight... Read More about A real-world employee scheduling and routing application..

Techniques for Auditing the ICT Carbon Footprint of an Organisation (2014)
Journal Article
Mouchet, C., Urquhart, N., & Kemmer, R. (2014). Techniques for Auditing the ICT Carbon Footprint of an Organisation. International Journal of Green Computing, 5(1), 44-61. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijgc.2014010104

This article has presents an extensive survey of the state of the art in Green IT/S. The findings of the survey suggest that there is scope for a reliable carbon footprint auditing tool for organisational ICT usage. A prototype auditing tool is devel... Read More about Techniques for Auditing the ICT Carbon Footprint of an Organisation.

Incorporating emissions models within a multi-objective vehicle routing problem. (2013)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Urquhart, N. B., Scott, C., & Hart, E. (2013, July). Incorporating emissions models within a multi-objective vehicle routing problem. Presented at 15th annual conference companion on Genetic and evolutionary computation

The vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) has previously been investigated as a multi-objective problem. In this paper estimated carbon emissions is added as an objective alongside the number of vehicles required and distance travelled. W... Read More about Incorporating emissions models within a multi-objective vehicle routing problem..

Using graphical information systems to improve vehicle routing problem instances. (2013)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Urquhart, N. B., Scott, C., & Hart, E. (2013, July). Using graphical information systems to improve vehicle routing problem instances. Presented at 15th annual conference companion on Genetic and evolutionary computation

This paper makes the assertion that vehicle routing rearch has produced increasingly more powerful problem solvers, but has not increased the realism or compexity of typical problem instances. This paper argues that the time has come of use realistic... Read More about Using graphical information systems to improve vehicle routing problem instances..

Planning and optimising organisational travel plans using an evolutionary algorithm. (2011)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Urquhart, N. B. (2011, April). Planning and optimising organisational travel plans using an evolutionary algorithm. Presented at European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation

Commuting to the workplace is a highly individualistic experience, especially where the private car is the chosen mode of transport. The costs of using cars with low occupancy rates are significant in environmental terms as well as requiring the prov... Read More about Planning and optimising organisational travel plans using an evolutionary algorithm..

Using an evolutionary algorithm to discover low CO2 tours within a Travelling Salesman Problem (2010)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Urquhart, N. B., Scott, C., & Hart, E. (2010, April). Using an evolutionary algorithm to discover low CO2 tours within a Travelling Salesman Problem. Presented at Applications of evolutionary computation : EvoApplications 2010, Istanbul, Turkey

This paper examines the issues surrounding the effects of using vehicle emissions as the fitness criteria when solving routing problems using evolutionary techniques. The case-study examined is that of the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) based upon... Read More about Using an evolutionary algorithm to discover low CO2 tours within a Travelling Salesman Problem.

Influence of topology and payload on CO2 optimised vehicle routing (2010)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Scott, C., Urquhart, N. B., & Hart, E. (2010). Influence of topology and payload on CO2 optimised vehicle routing. In Applications of Evolutionary Computing (141-150). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12242-2_15

This paper investigates the influence of gradient and payload correction factors used within a CO2 emission model on the solutions to shortest path and travelling salesman problems when applied to freight delivery.
Problem instances based on real li... Read More about Influence of topology and payload on CO2 optimised vehicle routing.