Mathematical model and solution approach for carriers' collaborative transportation planning in less than truckload transportation

Abstract : Collaborative transportation is achieved when multiple carriers or shippers form a partnership to optimise their transportation operations by sharing vehicle capacities and transportation tasks in order to cut empty back hauls and to increase vehicle utilisation rates. This paper studies a carriers' collaborative transportation planning problem in less than truckload transportation (CTPLTL) with pickup and delivery tasks and proposes a two-step solution approach for solving the problem. Firstly, a mixed integer programming model for the problem is proposed and a Lagrangian relaxation approach is developed to solve this model. Secondly, a set of feasible vehicle tours corresponding to the transportation plan of the carriers in collaborative transportation is constructed from the solution of the model. The performance of our proposed model and solution approach is evaluated by randomly generated instances.