The collaborative vehicle routing problem with consistency and workload balance (original) (raw)
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The Shared Customer Collaboration Vehicle Routing Problem
European Journal of Operational Research
This paper introduces a new vehicle routing problem that arises in an urban area where several carriers operate and some of their customers have demand of service for more than one carrier. The problem, called Shared Customer Collaboration Vehicle Routing Problem, aims at reducing the overall operational cost in a collaboration framework among the carriers for the service of the shared customers. Alternative mathematical programming formulations are proposed for the problem that are solved with a branch-and-cut algorithm. Computational experiments on different sets of benchmark instances are run to assess the effectiveness of the formulations. Moreover, in order to estimate the savings coming from the collaboration, the optimal solutions are compared with the solutions obtained when carriers work independently from each other.
Collaborative vehicle routing: A survey
European Journal of Operational Research
In horizontal collaborations, carriers form coalitions in order to perform parts of their logistics operations jointly. By exchanging transportation requests among each other, they can operate more efficiently and in a more sustainable way. Collaborative vehicle routing has been extensively discussed in the literature. We identify three major streams of research: (i) centralized collaborative planning, (ii) decentralized planning without auctions, and (ii) auction-based decentralized planning. For each of them we give a structured overview on the state of knowledge and discuss future research directions.
Less-Than-Truckload carrier collaboration problem: modeling framework and solution approach
Journal of Heuristics, 2013
Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) carriers generally serve geographical regions that are more localized than the inter-city line-hauls served by truckload carriers. That localization can lead to urban freight transportation routes that overlap. If trucks are traveling with less than full loads, there typically exist opportunities for carriers to collaborate over such routes. We introduce a two stage framework for LTL carrier collaboration. Our first stage involves collaboration between multiple carriers at the entrance to the city and can be formulated as a vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW). We employ guided local search for solving this VRPTW. The second stage involves collaboration between carriers at transshipment facilities while executing their routes identified in phase one. For solving the second stage problem, we develop novel local search heuristics, one of which leverages integer programming to efficiently explore the union of neighborhoods defined by new problem-specific move operators. Our computational results indicate that integrating integer programming with local search results in at least an order of magnitude speed up in the second stage problem. We also perform sensitivity analysis to assess the benefits from collaboration. Our results indicate that distance savings of 7-15 % can be achieved by collaborating at the entrance to the city. Carriers involved in intra-city collaboration can further save 3-15 % in total distance traveled, and also reduce their overall route times.
Less-Than-Truckload Carrier Collaboration Problem: Modelling Framework and Solution Approach
Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) carriers generally serve geographical regions that are more localized than the inter-city line-hauls served by truckload carriers. That localization can lead to urban freight transportation routes that overlap. If trucks are traveling with less than full loads, there typically exist opportunities for carriers to collaborate over such routes. We introduce a two stage framework for LTL carrier collaboration. Our first stage involves collaboration between multiple carriers at the entrance to the city and can be formulated as a vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW). We employ guided local search for solving this VRPTW. The second stage involves collaboration between carriers at transshipment facilities while executing their routes identified in phase one. For solving the second stage problem, we develop novel local search heuristics, one of which leverages integer programming to efficiently explore the union of neighborhoods defined by new problem-specific move operators. Our computational results indicate that integrating integer programming with local search results in at least an order of magnitude speed up in the second stage problem. We also perform sensitivity analysis to assess the benefits from collaboration. Our results indicate that distance savings of 7-15 % can be achieved by collaborating at the entrance to the city. Carriers involved in intra-city collaboration can further save 3-15 % in total distance traveled, and also reduce their overall route times.
Vehicle Routing under Consideration of Transhipment in Horizontal Coalitions of Freight Carriers
Procedia CIRP, 2014
In order to reduce operational costs related to transportation activities in road haulage, small and medium-sized freight carriers can establish horizontal coalitions and share their resources. Through exchange of customer requests with other members within the coalition, carriers can improve the operational efficiency of their transportation processes. In this paper, transhipment is integrated into the conventional pickup and delivery problem in the collaborative context. Specifically, vehicles involved in transferring the same request are synchronized at the transhipment points. A mixed-integer programming model is proposed for this problem. Based on this model the benefits of transhipment are analysed. Computational results show considerable cost-savings enabled by transhipment in the operational planning of carrier coalitions.
A less-than-truckload carrier collaboration planning problem under dynamic capacities
Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 2011
This paper addresses the deterministic dynamic single carrier collaboration problem for the small-to medium-sized less-than-truckload (LTL) industry. It is formulated as a binary (0-1) multi-commodity minimum cost flow problem and solved using a branch-and-cut algorithm. Its inherent network structure is exploited to generate the lower bounds to the branch-and-cut algorithm using the network simplex method and by relaxing the integrality constraints. Results from numerical experiments indicate inherent trade-offs at the higher degrees of collaboration between waiting for more affordable collaborative capacity and incurring higher holding costs. They also suggest that collaborating LTL carriers experience increased capacity utilization.
Mathematics, 2020
This paper addresses a collaborative multi-carrier vehicle routing problem (CMCVRP) where carriers tackle their orders collaboratively to reduce transportation costs. First, a hierarchical heuristics algorithm is proposed to solve the transportation planning problem. This algorithm makes order assignments based on two distance rules and solves the vehicle routing problem with a hybrid genetic algorithm. Second, the profit arising from the coalition is quantified, and an improved Shapley value method is proposed to distribute the profit fairly to individual players. Extensive experiment results showed the effectiveness of the proposed hierarchical heuristics algorithm and confirmed the stability and fairness of the improved Shapley value method.
Collaborative transportation planning of less-than-truckload freight
OR Spectrum, 2014
Collaborative transportation planning (CTP) within a coalition of small and mid-sized freight carriers can be used as a powerful instrument to improve the operational efficiency of the coalition members. In such coalitions, transportation requests acquired from different freight carriers are exchanged among coalition members in order to reduce the total fulfillment costs. We consider the CTP for a set of independent freight carriers exchanging less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation requests and we include the realistic restriction that all collaborating partners have only limited capacities in their fleets. In order to remain their autonomy, participants in such coalitions keep their sensitive information including customer payments and cost structures unexposed during CTP. A route-based combinatorial auction inspired by column generation is proposed as request exchange mechanism for the CTP. It is tested on some newly generated instances with LTL pickup and delivery requests with time window restrictions. The CTP solutions are compared with those obtained by isolated planning without collaboration and by centralized planning. The results indicate that our mechanism is very efficient and effective in terms of realizing potential cost-savings by CTP, even when capacity limitations and restrictions on the exposure of information are explicitly considered.
Operations Research Spektrum, 2014
Collaborative transportation planning (CTP) within a coalition of small and mid-sized freight carriers can be used as a powerful instrument to improve the operational efficiency of the coalition members. In such coalitions, transportation requests acquired from different freight carriers are exchanged among coalition members in order to reduce the total fulfillment costs. We consider the CTP for a set of independent freight carriers exchanging less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation requests and we include the realistic restriction that all collaborating partners have only limited capacities in their fleets. In order to remain their autonomy, participants in such coalitions keep their sensitive information including customer payments and cost structures unexposed during CTP. A route-based combinatorial auction inspired by column generation is proposed as request exchange mechanism for the CTP. It is tested on some newly generated instances with LTL pickup and delivery requests with time window restrictions. The CTP solutions are compared with those obtained by isolated planning without collaboration and by centralized planning. The results indicate that our mechanism is very efficient and effective in terms of realizing potential cost-savings by CTP, even when capacity limitations and restrictions on the exposure of information are explicitly considered.
Assignment constraints in shared transportation services
Annals of Operations Research, 2020
Competitive markets, increased fuel costs, and underutilized vehicle fleets are characteristics that currently define the logistics sector. Given an increasing pressure to act in a manner that is economically and ecologically efficient, mechanisms that help to benefit from idle capacities are on the rise. In the Sharing Economy, collaborative usage is typically organized through platforms that facilitate the exchange of goods or services. Our study examines a collaborative pickup and delivery problem where carriers can exchange customer requests. The aim is to quantify the potential of horizontal collaborations under a centralized framework. An Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search is developed to solve yet unsolved test instances. A computational study confirms the results of past studies which have reported cost savings between 20 and 30%. In addition, the numerical results indicate an even greater potential for settings with a high degree of regional customer overlap. Unfortunately, these high collaborative gains typically come at the cost of an uneven customer distribution, which is known to be one of the main barriers that prevent companies from entering into horizontal collaborations. To generate acceptable solutions for all participants, several constraints are included in the model. The introduction of these constraints to single-vehicle instances, decreases the potential collaborative gain considerably. Surprisingly, this does not happen in more realistic settings of carriers operating multiple vehicles. Overall, the computational study shows that centralized collaborative frameworks have the potential to generate considerable cost savings, while at the same time limiting customer or profit share losses and enabling carriers to keep some of their most valued customers. Keywords Logistics • Collaborations • Transportation • ALNS • Central planning 1 Introduction Competitive markets, increased fuel costs, underutilized vehicle fleets and stricter customer demands are characteristics that currently define the logistics sector. Due to the increasing B Margaretha Gansterer