Intermodal Freight Network Design for Transport of Perishable Products

The amount of perishable products transported via the existing intermodal freight networks has significantly increased over the last years. Perishable products tend to decay due to a wide range of external factors. Supply chain operations mismanagement causes waste of substantial volumes of perishable products every year. The heretofore proposed mathematical models optimize certain supply chain processes and reduce decay of perishable products, but primarily deal with local production, inventory, distribution, and retailing of perishable products. However, significant quantities of perishable products are delivered from different continents, which shall increase the total transportation time and decay potential of perishable products as compared to local deliveries. This paper proposes a novel optimization model to design the intermodal freight network for both local and long-haul deliveries of perishable products. The objective of the model aims to minimize the total cost associated with transportation and decay of perishable products. A set of piecewise approximations are applied to linearize the non-linear decay function for each perishable product type. CPLEX is used to solve the problem. Comprehensive numerical experiments are conducted using the intermodal freight network for import of the seafood perishable products to the United States to draw important managerial insights. Results demonstrate that increasing product decay cost may significantly change the design of intermodal freight network for transport of perishable products, cause modal shifts and affect the total transportation time and associated costs.