Developing Passenger Hub Location Problem Based on Origin-Destination Trips Derived by Gravity Model (Case Study of Iran's Rail Network)

Iran’s geographical situation, in particular long-distance routes, makes rail transportation to be more attractive and important than the other modes. Since transport cost is the main concern for local and national authorities, Hub location is an important problem in transport planning in which transport industries are looking for selected points to change trains for passengers. In this paper, a mathematical model for solving hub location problem has been developed and validated on Iranian rail network. Passenger supplies and demand from origin to destination nodes are estimated using the well-known model of Gravity as well as the shortest path algorithm has been also utilized for route assignment. Running the proposed model by GAMS revealed that choosing hubs can significantly reduce transport cost and enhance rail productivity along the rail network.