Designing a Road Network for Hazardous Materials Transportation with Fuzzy Parameters Based on Optimum Communication Steiner Tree

In this paper, we consider the problem of network design for hazardous materials transportation in a road network in an uncertain environment. Assume that the parameters such as transport risks of road sections are uncertain and can be represented by fuzzy numbers. A minimum risk Steiner tree network model is developed for this network design problem and there exists one and only one route between any given origin and destination in the tree network. The objective is to minimize the total risk of the hazardous materials transportation. To solve the tree network model with fuzzy parameters, we provide a fuzzy chance-constrained programming model for it, then convert it to the crisp equivalent, and lastly solve the crisp equivalent model using an off-the-shelf solver. The numerical example shows that different confidence levels lead to different Steiner tree networks and in order to design a robust hazardous materials transportation network, we should take into account the fuzziness of the parameters.