A long-haul freight transportation problem: synchronizing resources to deliver requests passing through multiple transshipment locations

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2015

Authors

Fábio Moreira (Author) FEUP; Pedro Amorim (Author) FEUP; Luís Guimarães (Author) FEUP; Bernardo Almada Lobo (Author) FEUP

Journal

Title: European Journal of Operational Research

ISSN: 0377-2217

Publisher: Elsevier

Indexing

ISI Web of Science

Scopus

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology

CORDIS: Technological sciences

Associated Projects

BESTCASE-RL2 - Smart Manufacturing and Logistics

Other information

Resumo (PT): This research aims at tackling a real-world long-haul freight transportation problem where tractors are allowed to exchange semi-trailers through several transshipment points until a request reaches its destiny. The unique characteristics of the considered logistics network allow for providing long-haul services by means of short-haul jobs, drastically reducing empty truck journeys. A greater flexibility is achieved with faster responses. Furthermore, the planning goals as well as the nature of the considered trips led to the definition of a new problem, the long-haul freight transportation problem with multiple transshipment locations. A novel mathematical formulation is developed to ensure resource synchronization while including realistic features, which are commonly found separately in the literature. Considering the complexity and dimension of this routing and scheduling problem, a mathematical programming heuristic (matheuristic) is developed with the objective of obtaining good quality solutions in a reasonable amount of time, considering the logistics business context. We provide a comparison between the results obtained for 79 real-world instances. The developed solution method is now the basis of a decision support system of a Portuguese logistics operator.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific