Mathematical model and solution approach for collaborative logistics in less than truckload (LTL) transportation

Bo Dai (1) , Haoxun Chen (1)

1 LOSI - Laboratoire d'Optimisation des Systèmes Industriels

Collaborative logistics is achieved when two or more carriers or shippers form partnerships to optimize their transportation operations by sharing vehicle capacities and delivery tasks in order to cut empty back hauls and to increase vehicle utilization rate. This paper studies collaborative logistics in less than truckload transportation and develops a general mathematical model and a Lagrangian relaxation approach to solve this problem. From the model's optimal solution, a set of feasible vehicle tours corresponding to the transportation operations in collaborative logistics can be constructed. The model is suitable for both shipper collaboration and carrier collaboration. Furthermore, ten randomly generated examples are tested to demonstrate the validity of our proposed model and solution approach.

Keywords: Vehicles; Costs; Road transportation; Lagrangian functions; Shipbuilding industry; Testing; Routing; collaborative logistics; collaborative transportation management; less than truckload; modeling; Lagrangian relaxation; Mathematical model; Collaboration; Logistics

Domains: Operations Research [cs.RO]; Modeling and Simulation

Bo Dai, Haoxun Chen. Mathematical model and solution approach for collaborative logistics in less than truckload (LTL) transportation. Industrial Engineering (CIE39), Jul 2009, Troyes, France. pp.767-772, ⟨10.1109/ICCIE.2009.5223847⟩. ⟨hal-02497241⟩