for a friendly, supportive, and co-operative working environment throughout the last years. Moreover, I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Gudrun P. Kiesmüller for reviewing this thesis, as well as the not-yet mentioned members of the defense committee, Prof. Dr. Jan Fabian Ehmke and Prof. Dr. Peter Reichling. Already from my second Ph.D. year onwards, I was lucky enough to find a second scientific home in Brescia, Italy, where I spent a total of five research visits at the Università degli Studi di

more »

... Brescia. Professor M. Grazia Speranza and her team at the Department of Economics and Management always hosted me with a lot of friendliness and assistance for which I am deeply grateful. I gained valuable insights into heuristic and exact solutions approaches for routing problems, and along the way I also learned to love the wonderful country of Italy. Apart from the professional world, I also received support from many people in my private life who provided me with some welcome distraction and who put me on the right track from time to time. I would like to especially thank my partner, Christian Stahlmann, for always encouraging me to push onwards, my parents, Gabriele Henke and Dietmar Montag, for always showing me a lot of optimism, and my dear friends Geeske and Joachim Döring for always spending important quality time with me.