Modelling freight consolidation from the perspective of shippers and carriers. (R-3156)

The recent trend towards collaborative logistics is fuelled by the constant pressure on firms to operate more efficiently. Companies operating at the same level in the market may cooperate to bundle their freight flows. Possible opportunities of such a horizontal cooperation are an increase in productivity (better vehicle capacity utilization, reduced empty mileage and lower costs of non-core activities), an increased service level and a more competitive market position. The aim of my doctoral research is to study the bundling of freight flows on the one hand from the perspective of shippers and on the other hand from the perspective of carriers. With regard to shippers, the first objective of my research is to develop a theoretical framework for modelling shipper collaboration. In particular, the goal is to develop a decision support framework for shippers to quantify the opportunities of collaboration and analyze the appropriate operating policy under varying conditions. Therefore, at first, a mathematical model based on the minimization of total logistics costs (TLC) will be developed to indicate possible advantages of shipper collaboration. Next, a detailed discrete event simulation model, which incorporates this mathematical model, will be constructed to resemble the decision making process of a shipper. The second objective of my research is to support the operational planning of carrier cooperation. In a first phase the joint operational planning of multiple carriers will be formulated as a vehicle routing problem (VRP). Subsequently, heuristic approaches will be developed to generate good quality solutions for this VRP in a short time frame, which is necessary in real-life cases.

Keywords:Distribution logistics, Freight transport

Disciplines:Economics and business