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Dennis Huisman

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Instances

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Latest News

September 17, 2021: publications, courses and list of students updated.

September 17, 2021: Johann Hartleb graduated on his thesis "Public Transport and Passngers - Optimization Models that Consider Travel Demand".

December 18, 2020: Gert-Jaap Polinder graduated on his thesis "New models and applications for railway timetabling". See this link for pictures of the defense.

July 10, 2020: Together with Menno de Bruyn, I gave a webinar on keeping essential workers moving: "public transport and COVID-19". Or view directly on YouTube.

January 24, 2020: Thomas Breugem graduated on his thesis "Crew Planning at Netherlands Railways: Improving Fairness, Attractiveness, and Efficiency’". See this link for pictures of the defense.

September 19, 2019: I explained the application of "Prescriptive Analytics" at NS in the national AI-cursus.

March 1, 2016: I have been appointed as endowed professor of Public Transport Optimization. See also the press releases (in Dutch) of the school and NS.
November 27, 2014: special issue on Logistics, Traffic and Transportation has been published in Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal. The special issue is edited by Karl Doerner, Leena Suhl and myself.
October 24, 2014: Erwin Abbink graduated on his thesis "Crew Management in Passenger Rail Transport".
August 8, 2014: Operations Research Proceedings 2013 containing selected papers of OR 2013 has been published by Springer. The book is edited by Ilse Louwerse, Albert Wagelmans and myself.
October 22, 2013: Two new papers can be downloaded (see publications).
September 3 to 6, 2013: OR 2013 took place in Rotterdam. OR 2013 is an international conference on Operations Research organized by the German and Dutch OR societies and Erasmus University Rotterdam. I was member of the program committee and chair of the organizing committee.
January 10, 2013: Twan Dollevoet graduated on his thesis "Delay Management and Dispatching in Railways".
June 29, 2012: Two new papers can be downloaded (see publications). One paper is about delay management and the other about scheduling networks of an express service provider.
March 8, 2012: The Erasmus School of Economics selected me as one of the Top Talent Researchers 2011. I received an award and a grant of 10,000 Euros (click here for more info).

Other highlights:

May 31, 2011: A joint paper with Leo Kroon won the first prize in the challenge "Even more trains, even more on time" on the World Congres on Railway Research in Lille. The paper about algorithmic support for disruption management can be downloaded (see publications).
October 21, 2010: Daniel Potthoff, my first PhD student, graduated. The title of his dissertation is Railway Crew Rescheduling: Novel Approaches and Extensions.

Click here for more pictures of Daniel's defense.
October 21, 2010: Netherlands Railways and Erasmus University signed an agreement on extending the cooperation on research in Management Science in Railways. Click here for more details (in Dutch).
October 20, 2010: Click here for a link to an interview (in Dutch) with me on BNR Nieuwsradio about software for crew rescheduling.
December 11, 1008: Together with Leo Kroon, Lex Schrijver and Gábor Maróti, I won the ERIM Impact Award.
On October 12, 2008, Leo Kroon and I reprised the presentation "The New Dutch Timetable: The OR Revolution" at the welcome session of the annual INFORMS conference in Washington D.C.

Afterwards the plaques and cash prize for the first place of the Franz Edelman Award 2008 were presented to us.

Below, from left to right: Tom Spencer, myself, Leo Kroon and Graham Rand.
Tom and Graham were our coaches during the competition.

NETHERLANDS RAILWAYS WINS FRANZ EDELMAN AWARD!

On April 14, 2008, Netherlands Railways received the Franz Edelman Award, a competition organized by INFORMS. The Edelman Award is also known as the "super-bowl of Operations Research".

On the pictures you see the team receiving the award at the gala dinner and showing the medals.

Earlier on the day, all six finalists gave a presentation on their work. The presentation of Netherlands Railways was given by Bert Meerstadt, Leo Kroon and myself (see picture below with the presenters at the rehearsal & presentation).

Earlier we had written an article entitled "The New Dutch Timetable: The OR Revolution", where I am one of the authors (together with Leo Kroon, Erwin Abbink, Pieter-Jan Fioole, Matteo Fischetti, Gábor Maróti, Lex Schrijver, Adri Steenbeek and Roelof Ybema).

Click on the links below for:
- INFORMS press release
- YouTube clip with acceptance speech
- YouTube clip with short presentation during the gala

Personal Data

Full name:	Dennis Huisman
Titles:	prof. dr.
Affiliation:	Econometric Institute, Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Position:	Endowed Professor Public Transport Optimization (2 days per week)
Address:	P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Room:	ET-47
Phone:	(+31) 10 - 40 81523
Fax:	(+31) 10 - 40 89162
Email:	huisman@ese.eur.nl

I also have a part-time position as Expertise Manager Logistic Processes at Netherlands Railways, department Process quality & Innovation (3 days per week).

Courses

In the academic year 2021-2022, I teach the Seminar Logistic Case Studies. Furthermore, I will teach the logistic case in the bachelor course Basiswerkcollege Econometrie & Besliskunde.

During the academic years 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, I have taught the courses Quantitative methods for Logistics. In earlier years (2003-2004, 2004-2005, and 2006-2007), this course was known as Quantitative methods for location, distibution and transportation. During the academic year 2001-2002, I have taught the course Logistieke modellen 1 (Logistics models; first part about facility location and vehicle routing).

Furthermore, I have taught the following case studies in the master seminar Logistic Case Studies :

"Decision support for vehicle planning at a RET metro depot" in cooperation with RET, January-March 2021
"Asset Planning for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance" in cooperation with TNO, January-March 2020;
"Rescheduling in the Rotterdam tram network” in cooperation with RET, January-March 2019
"Holiday Assignment" in cooperation with KLM, January-March 2018;
"Rolling Stock Optimization" in cooperation with NS, January-March 2017;
"Optimizing 737 A-check interval utilisation" in cooperation with KLM, January-March 2016;
"Security planning" in cooperation with TNO, January-March 2015;
"Helping Africa", in cooperation with ORTEC, January-March 2014;
"Railway Disruption Management", January-March 2013;
"Online UAV mission planning" in cooperation with TNO, January-February 2012;
"Anchorage management in the port of Rotterdam" together with Albert Veenstra and "Railway Disruption Management", January-February 2011;
"A feedstock supply network design problem" in cooperation with Shell Global Solutions, January-February 2010;
"Tank Scheduling" in cooperation with OM Partners, January-February 2009;
"Crew Re-scheduling during the day of operation", January-February 2008;
"Manpower planning for the Dutch police force" together with Pointlogic, January-February 2007;
"Home Care Scheduling" together with Albert Wagelmans, January-February 2006;
"There is a bear on the track!" together with Albert Wagelmans and Gabriella Budai, January-February 2005;
"Movie Scheduling" together with Albert Wagelmans, January-February 2004;
"Fleet Management" together with Richard Freling and Sebastiaan de Groot (student assistant), September-October 2001;
"Dial-a-Ride" together with Nanda Piersma, January-March 2001;
"Dynamische Voertuigplanning" ("Dynamic vehicle scheduling") together with Albert Wagelmans, September-October 2000;
"Roosterplanning van lift inspecteurs" ("Rostering of elevator inspectors") together with Albert Wagelmans, September-October 1998 (as student assistant).

Finally, I have (co-)supervised the following students (at Erasmus University*) writing their master's thesis:

Lennox Kim: “A Multi Service Capacitated Facility Location Problem with Stochastic Demand” (2021).

Lars Leijten: “Heuristics for Rolling Stock Rebalancing” (2021).

Rick Willemsen: “A Column Generation Approach for the Integrated Crew Rostering Problem with Fairness and Attractiveness Requirements” (2020).

Lisanne van Huizen: “Integrated Vehicle and Crew Rescheduling - Disruption management of the RET tram network” (2020).

Ingeborg de Pater: “A sequential and an integrated approach for rolling stock rebalancing in railways” (2019).

Michaël Hofmeijer: “Optimizing and planning freight trains” (2019).

Jim van Houwelingen: "A Column Generation Heuristic for Multi-Depot Vehicles Scheduling with Electric Vehicles" (2018).

Olmo Verhagen: "Planning Maritime Pilots" (2018).

Rolf van Lieshout: "Railway Disruption Management in (Near) Out-of-Control Situations" (2017).
Mirjam Meijer: "Nonlinear Variation Constraints in Railway Crew Scheduling" (2017).
Erik Essink: "A genetic algorithm for constructing and optimising railway timetables" (2017).
Nikki van de Ven;: "Task-level shift planning for airport gorund staff" (2016).
Nemanja Milovanović: "Evaluating Passenger Seating Capacity at NS Using Simulation" (2016).
Rowan Hoogervorst: "The Rolling Stock Rescheduling Problem for Small Disruptions" (2016).
Martin van Meerkerk: "Robust Heuristics for a Multi-Constrained Stochastic Team Orienteering Problem with Heterogeneous Resources" (2015), together with TNO.
Thomas Breugem: "Integrated Duty Assignment and Crew Rostering" (2015).
Gerben Roos: "Unpredictability in patrolling" (2015), together with TNO.
Furqaan Khaliq: "Performance of an Analytical Model for Internet Traffic Analysis" (2015), together with TNO.
Sven van den Berg: "Demand-to-Train Allocation in a Hub-and-Spoke network" (2014), together with AbOvo.
Bart van Genderen: "Allocation of maritime assets in surveillance missions" (2014), together with TNO.
Corrinne Luteyn: "The UAV-Mission Planning Problem with Time Windows and Stochastic Fuel Consumption" (2013), together with Lanah Evers and TNO.
Nathalie van Zeijl: "Including Practical Information in Route Planning Applications" (2013), together with Backbone Systems.
Philip van Buuren: "Solving large Hub Location Problems in Express Networks: A column generation algorithm" (2012), together with ORTEC.
Bayram Kavi: "Optimizing the line-up in soccer with real-life data" (2012), together with ORTEC.
Germain Rodriguez: "Strategic Manpower Allocation based on Operations Research Methods" (2012), together with DB Schenker UK.
Luuk Gerrits: "The Resource Assignment Problem" (2011), together with ORTEC.
Ilse Louwerse: "Rescheduling Movements in the Network of an Express Service Provider" (2010), together with ORTEC.
Dennis Vlugt: "Robust railway crew schedules" (2010).
Harm Bossers: "Tour Driver Scheduling: A Column Generation Approach combined with Lagrangian Relaxation" (2009), together with ORTEC.
Luuk Veelenturf: "Railway Crew Rescheduling with Retiming" (2009), together with Daniel Potthoff.
Martin Koppers: "The Duty Allocation Problem at Netherlands Railways: A tabu search approach" (2009).
Twan Dollevoet: "Crew Scheduling at Netherlands Railways: The pricing process in a new algorithm to solve the Crew Scheduling Problem" (2007).
Joël van 't Wout: "Crew scheduling at Netherlands Railways: using TURNI effectively" (2007).
Rutger de Mare: "A Column Generation and Local Search Approach to a Multi Product Inventory and Ship-Scheduling Problem" (2006), together with ORTEC.
Susanne Sinnema: "Modeling passenger buy-down behavior in airline revenue management" (2005), together with Gerard Kindervater and KLM.
Marga Buys-Trimp: "Shutdown scheduling at refineries" (2005), together with Ruud Teunter and ORTEC.
Annelies Woutersen: "Diensten genereren in de praktijk - Een praktische toepassing van twee wiskundige formuleringen" (2005), together with Albert Wagelmans and ORTEC.
Marian Teeuw: "Het mes erin om beter te worden - onderzoek naar operatiekamerplanning" (2005), together with Albert Wagelmans and Pointlogic.
Kasper Boers and André Bosschaart: "Optimal Value Routing - Automatische routering van internationaal telecomverkeer bij KPN" (2005), together with Rommert Dekker and KPN.
Kees van der Wagt: "Materieelplanning ten behoeve van een buitendienststelling" (2003), together with Leo Kroon and NS Reizigers (Dutch Railways).
Sebastiaan de Groot: "Een Geïntegreerde Aanpak van Voertuig- en Personeelsplanning Toegepast op Grote Probleeminstanties" (2003), together with Albert Wagelmans.
Pieter-Jan Fioole: "RINTEL: Het automatisch genereren en verbeteren van een rangeerplanning" (2003), together with Leo Kroon and NS Reizigers
Ildikó Fodor Birtalan: "Matching arrivals to departures in the train unit shunting problem" (2003),
together with Leo Kroon.
Albert Varekamp: "Dynamische Multi-Vehicle Dial-a-Ride met Tijdvensters bij Taxibedrijf Niemantsverdriet" (2001),
together with Nanda Piersma and Niemantsverdriet Taxi Service, Spijkenisse.

* I supervised several students at other universities when they did their internship at NS, and many bachelor theses.

Research

Current research projects

Currently, the focus of my research is on public transport optimization, in particular railway applications. Examples are crew rescheduling, crew rostering and rolling stock management.

During the last years, I spent most time on developing an algorithm for crew re-scheduling. The problem deals with the re-scheduling the duties of train drivers and conductors in case of adjusted timetables and rolling stock plans. These changes are mainly caused by construction works on the railway infrastructure. After successful initial results of a prototype of the algorithm, the algorithm has been implemented in the software package CREWS - developed by the Portugese software company SISCOG - and used by NS.

Together with Daniel Potthoff, I worked on crew re-scheduling during disruptions. This research is the topic of the PhD dissertation of Daniel, who graduated on October 21, 2010. The title of his dissertation is Railway Crew Rescheduling: Novel Approaches and Extensions.

Together with Twan Dollevoet, I worked on delay management and dispatching problems in the railway world. Twan defended his PhD thesis on January 10, 2013. The title of his dissertation is Delay Management and Dispatching in Railways.

Erwin Abbink graduated on different aspects of crew management. Erwin defended his thesis on October 24, 2014. The title of his dissertation is Crew Management in Passenger Rail Transport.

Finished research projects

I defended my thesis "Integrated and Dynamic Vehicle and Crew Scheduling" on Friday February 20, 2004.

Click here to enlarge the pictures.

An electronic version of my thesis can be found here. With the thesis, I was a finalist in the "2004 Transporation Science and Logistics Section Dissertation Prize Competition" of INFORMS. My promotors were Albert Wagelmans and Rommert Dekker. Until he passed away on January 29, 2002, I was also supervised by Richard Freling.

Richard Freling and I also developed a system for the integrated Vehicle and Crew Scheduling Problem.

Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways). This project, Rintel, deals with shunting passenger train units in a railway station. Before I was involved, Richard Freling did a lot of work in this project.
Based on this project, we have written an article entitled "Shunting of Passenger Train Units in a Railway Station" which has been published in Transportation Science (see publications). Moreover, Ramon Lentink and myself, won the first prize in the student research paper contest on Management Science in Railroad Applications with this paper in 2002. This competition was sponsored by RASIG (Rail Applications Special Interest Group; section of INFORMS) and Railway Age. The presentation of prizes happened during the INFORMS Annual Meeting in San Jose, California, USA on November 18, 2002. Click here for pictures of the ceremony.

Follow the link for my publications.

Management and Memberships

I am one of the founders of the Erasmus Center for Optimization in Public Transport (ECOPT), where we study planning problems that arise in public transport and develop solution methods for these problems and software to support the planning processes.

Furthermore, I am a member of INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences).

Since March 22, 2005, I am a member of ERIM (Erasmus Research Institute of Management).

Erasmus School of Economics