Linear program solvers: PuLP

We will solve the instance of a Minimum cost flow problem described in (1) now with another linear program solver: PuLP. Node 1 is the source node, nodes 2 and 3 are the transshipment nodes and node 4 is the sink node.

mcf_dimacs_1

While lpsolve has this nice feature of reading DIMACS network flow problems, PuLP has nothing comparable to offer. So we have to transform the whole network flow problem into a plain linear program on our own.

At the PuLP wiki I found a sample for solving the transshipment problem with PuLP. Actually these code snippets work also for the minimum cost flow problem but in the original code there is a typo:

Wrong:

for n in Nodes:
    prob += (supply[n]+ lpSum([route_vars[(i,j)] for (i,j) in Arcs if j == n]) >=
             demand[n]+ lpSum([route_vars[(i,j)] for (i,j) in Arcs if i == n])), \
            "Steel Flow Conservation in Node:%s"%n

Right:

for n in Nodes:
    prob += (supply[n]+ lpSum([route_vars[(i,j)] for (i,j) in Arcs if j == n]) >=
             demand[n]+ lpSum([route_vars[(i,j)] for (i,j) in Arcs if i == n])), \
            "Steel Flow Conservation in Node %s"%n

The problem in the original code is the colon (‚:‘) at 'Steel Flow Conservation in Node:%s"%n'. This causes the generation of an incorrect *.lp file that is generated when you use PuLP. This *.lp file will be sent to a solver package of your (or PuLP’s) choice. So just remove the colon in this line.

Here we go with the full working code for our sample instance of the MCFP:

'''
Minimum Cost Flow Problem Solver with PuLP
Adapted from:
https://code.google.com/p/pulp-or/wiki/ATransshipmentProblem
The American Steel Problem for the PuLP Modeller
Authors: Antony Phillips, Dr Stuart Mitchell   2007

'''

# Import PuLP modeller functions
from pulp import *

# list of nodes
nodes = [1,2,3,4]

# supply or demand of nodes
            #NodeID : [Supply,Demand]
nodeData = {1:[4,0],
            2:[0,0],
            3:[0,0],
            4:[0,4]}

# arcs list
arcs = [ (1,2),
         (1,3),
         (2,3),
         (2,4),
         (3,4)]

# arcs cost, lower bound and capacity
            #Arc : [Cost,MinFlow,MaxFlow]
arcData = { (1,2):[2,0,4],
            (1,3):[2,0,2],
            (2,3):[1,0,2],
            (2,4):[3,0,3],
            (3,4):[1,0,5] }

# Splits the dictionaries to be more understandable
(supply, demand) = splitDict(nodeData)
(costs, mins, maxs) = splitDict(arcData)

# Creates the boundless Variables as Integers
vars = LpVariable.dicts("Route",arcs,None,None,LpInteger)

# Creates the upper and lower bounds on the variables
for a in arcs:
    vars[a].bounds(mins[a], maxs[a])

# Creates the 'prob' variable to contain the problem data    
prob = LpProblem("Minimum Cost Flow Problem Sample",LpMinimize)

# Creates the objective function
prob += lpSum([vars[a]* costs[a] for a in arcs]), "Total Cost of Transport"

# Creates all problem constraints - this ensures the amount going into each node is 
# at least equal to the amount leaving
for n in nodes:
    prob += (supply[n]+ lpSum([vars[(i,j)] for (i,j) in arcs if j == n]) >=
             demand[n]+ lpSum([vars[(i,j)] for (i,j) in arcs if i == n])), \
            "Flow Conservation in Node %s"%n

# The problem data is written to an .lp file
prob.writeLP("simple_MCFP.lp")

# The problem is solved using PuLP's choice of Solver
prob.solve()

# The optimised objective function value is printed to the screen    
print "Total Cost of Transportation = ", value(prob.objective)

The code is well commented. For a very detailed description have a look at the wiki of PuLP. Because there is no special network component in the PuLP modeler – any problem to solve is a linear program. So you have to write any instance of a MCFP as a plain LP which is not easy to understand at first glance.

Schreibe einen Kommentar

Deine E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht veröffentlicht. Erforderliche Felder sind mit * markiert