Collaborative transportation planning distinguishing old and new shippers for small-medium enterprise

Abstract This paper conducted a research on the vehicle routing problem (VRP) for small–medium enterprise (SMEs) considering new and old shippers. The problem is motivated by a real-world scenario found between Changzhou’s small or medium enterprises (Shippers) and transportation companies (Carriers). Since the service time is different for new and old shippers in the real world, we obtained a set of rich VRP considering time windows and the working time of the vehicle, as well as distinguishing between old and new shippers. We also propose a hybrid algorithm that consists of ant colony optimization (ACO) and tabu search (TS). Carrier’s trade-off point of orders’ number is calculated by the hybrid algorithm. Meanwhile, scenarios of deterministic versus stochastic shippers’ demand and collaborative versus non-collaborative carriers are optimized by the algorithm. The results show that the collaborative transportation planning could improve the profits of carriers.

[1]  Martin W. P. Savelsbergh,et al.  Reducing Truckload Transportation Costs Through Collaboration , 2007, Transp. Sci..

[2]  Kamran S. Moghaddam,et al.  Farm management optimization using chance constrained programming method , 2011 .

[3]  Yanming Wang,et al.  Credit Decision Model and Mechanism with Default Risk Parameter , 2008 .

[4]  Lars Mönch,et al.  A methodology to solve large-scale cooperative transportation planning problems , 2012, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[5]  Herbert Kopfer,et al.  Collaborating freight forwarding enterprises Request allocation and profit sharing , 2007 .

[6]  Cees Ruijgrok,et al.  European Transport: Insights and Challenges , 2017 .

[7]  Jian Yang,et al.  Real-Time Multivehicle Truckload Pickup and Delivery Problems , 2004, Transp. Sci..

[8]  Salvador Hernandez,et al.  A less-than-truckload carrier collaboration planning problem under dynamic capacities , 2011 .

[9]  Manuel López-Ibáñez,et al.  Ant colony optimization , 2010, GECCO '10.

[10]  S. Hamid Mirmohammadi,et al.  Site dependent vehicle routing problem with soft time window: Modeling and solution approach , 2015, Comput. Ind. Eng..

[11]  Xin Wang,et al.  Collaborative transportation planning of less-than-truckload freight , 2014, OR Spectr..

[12]  David A. Hensher,et al.  Handbook of Logistics and Supply-Chain Management , 2001 .

[13]  Gilbert Laporte,et al.  Horizontal cooperation among freight carriers: request allocation and profit sharing , 2008, J. Oper. Res. Soc..

[14]  W. Y. Szeto,et al.  GRASP with path relinking for the selective pickup and delivery problem , 2016, Expert Syst. Appl..

[15]  Majid Yousefikhoshbakht,et al.  A combination of modified tabu search and elite ant system to solve the vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickup and delivery , 2014 .

[16]  Seyed Reza Hejazi,et al.  A novel hybrid column generation-metaheuristic approach for the vehicle routing problem with general soft time window , 2015, Inf. Sci..

[17]  Bo Dai,et al.  Profit allocation mechanisms for carrier collaboration in pickup and delivery service , 2012, Comput. Ind. Eng..

[18]  Tai-Hsi Wu,et al.  A TABU SEARCH APPROACH FOR THE DETERMINISTIC AND STOCHASTIC VEHICLE FLEET MIX AND ROUTING PROBLEM , 2001 .

[19]  Ulrich Pferschy,et al.  Generating subtour elimination constraints for the TSP from pure integer solutions , 2015, Central European Journal of Operations Research.

[20]  Herbert Kopfer,et al.  Collaborating freight forwarding enterprises , 2006, OR Spectr..

[21]  Eduard Babkin,et al.  A multi-agent approach to Intelligent Transportation Systems modeling with combinatorial auctions , 2014, Expert Syst. Appl..

[22]  Chia-Ho Chen,et al.  AN IMPROVED ANT COLONY SYSTEM ALGORITHM FOR THE VEHICLE ROUTING PROBLEM , 2006 .

[23]  Tian Peng,et al.  Research on ant colony optimization algorithm for the open vehicle routing problem , 2008 .

[24]  Bo Dai,et al.  Price-setting based combinatorial auction approach for carrier collaboration with pickup and delivery requests , 2014, Oper. Res..

[25]  Richard F. Hartl,et al.  Request evaluation strategies for carriers in auction-based collaborations , 2016, OR Spectr..

[26]  Stephen C. H. Leung,et al.  Vehicle routing problems with time windows and stochastic travel and service times: Models and algorithm , 2010 .

[27]  Egon Balas,et al.  The prize collecting traveling salesman problem , 1989, Networks.

[28]  Michel Gendreau,et al.  Traveling Salesman Problems with Profits , 2005, Transp. Sci..

[29]  Seyda Topaloglu,et al.  A hybrid metaheuristic algorithm for heterogeneous vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickup and delivery , 2016, Expert Syst. Appl..

[30]  Yuan Li,et al.  Adaptive large neighborhood search for the pickup and delivery problem with time windows, profits, and reserved requests , 2016, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[31]  Christian Bierwirth,et al.  Solutions to the request reassignment problem in collaborative carrier networks , 2010 .

[32]  Jalel Euchi,et al.  The dynamic vehicle routing problem: Solution with hybrid metaheuristic approach , 2015, Swarm Evol. Comput..

[33]  Shu-Chu Liu,et al.  A hybrid heuristic method for the fleet size and mix vehicle routing problem , 2013 .

[34]  Haoxun Chen,et al.  Mathematical model and solution approach for collaborative logistics in less than truckload (LTL) transportation , 2009, 2009 International Conference on Computers & Industrial Engineering.

[35]  Marco Dorigo,et al.  Ant system: optimization by a colony of cooperating agents , 1996, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Part B.