routecentered

Routecentered is a concept used in routing, logistics, and network design that emphasizes optimization and analysis of complete routes or paths rather than focusing on individual network nodes. In route-centered modeling, decision variables describe entire routes or sequences of edges, and objectives assess end-to-end performance such as total travel time, cost, reliability, or service level for the whole route rather than local node metrics. This approach contrasts with node-centered methods that prioritize hub selection, node reliability, or local capacity.

Key features of route-centered approaches include path-based decision variables, the explicit construction and evaluation of whole routes, and constraints that apply to the route as a whole, such as time windows, continuity requirements, vehicle capacities, or route viability under external conditions. Route-centered modeling is used across transportation, logistics, and networking domains, including vehicle routing problems, emergency response planning, public transit routing, and path-based routing in certain communication networks, where the quality of an entire path matters for performance guarantees.

Methods employed in route-centered contexts range from exact algorithms for small instances to heuristics and metaheuristics that optimize at the route level, and may involve decomposition techniques that separate route construction from local feasibility checks. Advantages of this perspective include more accurate representation of end-to-end performance and better alignment with service objectives, while limitations often involve higher computational complexity and data requirements for evaluating complete routes. See also route optimization, vehicle routing problem, path planning, and network routing.