Monday, April 18, 2016

[DMANET] Ph.D. Studentship in mathematical programming for transportation at the LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France

Title : Modeling and decomposition algorithms for multi-horizon multi-modal freight transportation problems over scheduled lines

Applications are invited for a 3-year ANR-funded Ph.D. studentship to study transportation problems and mathematical programming algorithms for these problems at the LAAS-CNRS in Toulouse, France (http://www.laas.fr). Candidates should have a strong background in operations research, especially in combinatorial optimization and mathematical programming (integer programming, search tree algorithms, decomposition techniques…) and a particular interest in transportation and logistics. Computer science skills in algorithmic and C/C++ development are also necessary.

The goal of the thesis is to study transportation problems where a centralized decision maker must respond to a series of service requests in a comodal environment. The goal is to ensure the transportation of the freight over a predefined multi-modal network where some links must respect a predefine schedule (for instance, freight transportation on railways depends on the proposed schedules by the company managing the train). The solution proposed has to be robust over a first horizon (short or mid-term). However, the solution also need to be flexible on more long term horizon to absorb variations without needing to completely reimplement a new solution. The approach will focus on the modeling of the problem as robust combinatorial optimization problems, notably as integer programs, and the solution methods proposed will be base on decomposition methods and matheuristics. The problem will be defined with DHL and the methods will be tested on instances generated from scenarios defined by DHL.

The studentship is open to applicants of all nationalities. The applicant should hold a master in operations research, computer science or applied mathematics. The successful candidate will receive a monthly salary of around 1500 € / 2000 $ (after taxes).

Further enquiries should be addressed to: Nicolas Jozefowiez (njozefow_at_laas.fr) and Frédéric Semet (frederic.semet_at_ec-lille.fr).

Applicants should send by email an up-to-date CV, a covering letter, scores and ranking during the last two years of academic studies, a copy of their master thesis, and if possible a letter of recommendation.

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* Supervisors: Nicolas Jozefowiez (LAAS-CNRS, Université de Toulouse), Frédéric Semet (Ecole Centrale de Lille)
* Contact: nicolas.jozefowiez_at_laas.fr, frederic.semet_at_ec-lille.fr
* Location: LAAS-CNRS – Toulouse, France
* Duration: 3 years (full time) starting as soon as possible
* Grant: around 1500 € / 2000 $ (after taxes)
* Key-words: Operations research, Combinatorial optimization, Mathematical programming, Integer programming, Decomposition techniques
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