MULTICOMMODITY SUPPLY AND TRANSPORTATION NETWORKS WITH RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS: THE GENERALIZED MULTICOMMODITY FLOW PROBLEM

Abstract : The paper presents a method for treating multicommodity network flows in which limited resources are shared among several arcs instead of only one. The study extends the previous solution methods for networks with individual arc capacity constraints to cover joint constraints. This formulation can handle one or more joint capacity constraints in a multicommodity network; with some adjustment in the objective function, it can maximize a linear combination of commodity flows and find a feasible routing to meet flow requirements.