On the optimization of transportation routes with multiple destinations in random networks

Various practical problems in transportation research and routing in communication networks can be reduced to the computation of the best path that traverses a certain graph and visits a set of D specified destination nodes. Simple versions of this problem have received attention in the literature. Optimal solutions exist for the cases in which (a) D >; 1 and the graph is deterministic or (b) D = 1 and the graph is stochastic (and possibly time-dependent). Here, we address the general problem in which both D >; 1 and the costs of the edges in the graph are stochastic and time-varying. We tackle this complex global optimization problem by first converting it into an equivalent estimation problem and then computing a numerical solution using a sequential Monte Carlo algorithm. The advantage of the proposed technique over some standard methods (devised for graphs with time-invariant statistics) is illustrated by way of computer simulations.