Scientific conference VeRoLog 2014 - Third Conference of the EURO Working Group on Vehicle Routing and Logistics Optimization

VeRoLog www.verolog.eu is the Working Group on Vehicle Routing and Logistics Optimization within EURO, the Association of the European Operational Research Societies. It was established in 2011. Vehicle Routing optimization is at the core of logistics and supply chain management as well as management of public transportation. It is a very active research area in Operations Research that sees an intense contribution from a large number of researchers working in universities, research centres and companies. As a computationally hard discrete optimization problem the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is scientifically very interesting. It has high relevance to eScience. An annual, scientific, international VeRoLog conference will rotate between the EURO member societies. It is the only major conference where the VRP and its variants is the sole scientific topic. The ongoing DOMinant II project in eVITA is about two particular types of VRP: fleet composition and inventory routing. Professor Christiansen, NTNU, P M of DOMinant II, and Chief Research Scientist Hasle, SINTEF, the principal DOMinant II investigator at SINTEF, are two of eight members of the VeRoLog board. The countries represented in the board are expected to take responsibility for the first confere nces in the series. The first VeRoLog conference will take place in Bologna, Italy June 18-20 2012. By the deadline, some 130 abstracts have been submitted. There are 3 invited keynote speakers and 1 invited tutorial. The conference fee is 300 Euros, wit h 200 Euros for PhD students. VeRoLog 2013 is expected to be arranged in Great Britain. The DOMinant II partners NTNU, SINTEF, and Høgskolen i Molde have informally proposed Norway as venue for VeRoLog 2014 to the VeRoLog board. To ensure a high scientifi c quality and an acceptable conference fee we need economical support. In case, the three organizers will provide substantial in-kind financing. We will also invite private sponsors.