2013 Session: 268

• Modeling Resilience Enhancement Strategies for International Express Logistics
  Abstract: International express is one most time-sensitive industry, which may need to respond disruptions quickly so as to improve service quality and to avoid losing their competitiveness with other logistics service providers. Instead of arbitrarily making rush decisions during the post-disruption phase, this paper contributes a method for quantifying and optimizing the resilience strategies based on the integrated resource assignment concepts, regardless of how the available resources are located with respect to the studied logistics network or how many capacities we can rent from others.The study starts from a typical transportation network modeling approach and then incorporates nonlinear time-dependent cargo value functions into a multi-objective mixed integer nonlinear programming (MMINLP) problem. A set of optimal actions from resilient strategies are considered, such as: selecting alternative routes, switching shipping modes, renting other carriers¡¦ capacities, re-allocating local trucks, and prioritizing the order of shipments due to limited capacities. Decisions should be based on overall trade-off considerations, while jointly maximizing the product of total time-dependent cargo value and the corresponding throughput and minimizing the costs incurred by resilience enhancement strategies.
  Authors: Chen, Cheng-Chieh; Feng, Cheng-Min; Tsai, Ya-Hsuan; Wu, Pei-Ju
  Authors: Chen, Cheng-Chieh; Feng, Cheng-Min; Tsai, Ya-Hsuan; Wu, Pei-Ju
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 268
  Paper Number: 13-1869
• Routing and Scheduling Approach for Urgent Material Distribution Problem
  Abstract: This paper extends a further study on the Urgent Material Distribution Problem (UMDP), which addresses urgent materials distribution planning in response to the suddenly happened emergencies. Unlike other classical vehicle routing problems, the objective of UMDP is to maximize the slack, defined as the variance between delivery arriving time and estimated materials¡¯ running out time at dispensing sites, in the deliveries process rather than minimize the total cost of delivery. Previous researchers have proposed a two-stage method, including routing and scheduling problems, which can offer an efficient way to solve this problem. However, some inter-correlations between objective function and control variables were ignored, making it hard to achieve the optimal solution. In this study, those inter-correlations are fully explored and the objective function is converted into a new format for easier solving. Two solution heuristics are proposed in the rouging stage, where the first one is used for initial solution generation and the second is for solution improvement. Numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach compared with existing approaches.
  Authors: Yang, Xianfeng; Feng, Lei
  Authors: Yang, Xianfeng; Feng, Lei
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 268
  Paper Number: 13-4343
• Modeling of Greenhouse Gas Emission Mitigation Strategies in the Trucking Sector: Methodology
  Abstract: In response to the growing climate change problem, many governments around the world are seeking ways to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from various sectors of the economy. The trucking transportation sector is important in meeting this challenge in the US because it is responsible for a share of these emissions that is significant and growing. However, the current state-of-practice in freight transportation modeling has various methodological gaps that prevent it from being used to evaluate the effectiveness of different GHG mitigation strategies in this sector. The present research bridges some of these gaps by developing a Trucking Sector Optimization (TSO) model that considers the decisions made by carriers and shippers throughout time. Governmental strategies affect the business environment of shippers (shifting demand) and/or carriers (shifting supply), establishing a new market equilibrium with hopefully lowers lifecycle GHG emissions from tailpipes, precombustion, infrastructure and vehicle manufacturing. This paper contributes to the existing literature by presenting a conceptual and analytical framework for investigating the responses of the trucking industry to different types of governmental interventions. Finally, these methodologies are briefly applied to a case study to demonstrate their usefulness.
  Authors: Guerrero, Sebastian; Madanat, Samer Michel; Leachman, Rob
  Authors: Guerrero, Sebastian; Madanat, Samer Michel; Leachman, Rob
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 268
  Paper Number: 13-5137
• Dynamic Collection Scheduling Using Remote Asset Monitoring: Case Study in Charity Sector
  Abstract: In the waste collection sector, remote sensing technology is now coming onto the market, allowing waste and recycling receptacles to report their fill levels at regular intervals. This enables collection schedules to be dynamically optimised to better meet true servicing needs, so reducing transport costs and ensuring that visits to clients are made in a timely fashion. This paper describes a real-life logistics problem faced by a leading UK charity in servicing its textile and book donation banks and its High Street stores using a common fleet of vehicles with varying carrying capacities. This gives rise to a vehicle routing problem whereby visits to stores are on fixed days of the week, with time window constraints, and visits to banks (fitted with remote fill monitoring technology) are made in a timely fashion to avoid them becoming full before collection. A tabu search algorithm was developed to provide vehicles routes for the next day of operation, based on maximising profit. A longer look-ahead period was not considered on the basis that donation rates to banks are highly variable. The algorithm included parameters specifying the minimum fill level (e.g. 50%) required to allow a visit to a bank and a penalty function used to encourage visits to banks that are becoming full. The results showed that the algorithm increased profit by up to 3.6% with best performance obtained the more variable the donation rates.
  Authors: McLeod, Fraser Neil; Erdogan, Gunes; Cherrett, Tom; Bektas, Tolga
  Authors: McLeod, Fraser Neil; Erdogan, Gunes; Cherrett, Tom; Bektas, Tolga
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 268
  Paper Number: 13-1814
  Practice-Ready: Yes
• Geographic Scalability and Supply Chain Elasticity of a Structural Commodity Generation Model Using Public Data
  Abstract: Freight forecasting models are data intensive and require many explanatory variables to be accurate. One problem, particularly in the United States, is that public data sources are mostly at highly aggregate geographic levels, while models with more disaggregate geographic levels are required for regional freight transportation planning. Second, supply chain effects are often ignored or modeled with economic input-output models which lack explanatory power. This study addresses these challenges by considering a structural equation modeling approach, which is not confined to a specific spatial structure as spatial regression models would be, and allows for correlations between commodities. A FAF-based structural commodity generation model is specified and estimated and shown to provide a better fit to the data than independent regression models for each commodity. Three features of the model are discussed: indirect effects, supply chain elasticity, and intrazonal supply-demand interactions. A validation of the geographic scalability of the model is conducted using data imputed with a goal programming method.
  Authors: Ranaiefar, Fatemeh; Chow, Joseph Y. J.; Rodriguez-Roman, Daniel; Veiga de Camargo, Pedro; Ritchie, Stephen G.
  Authors: Ranaiefar, Fatemeh; Chow, Joseph Y. J.; Rodriguez-Roman, Daniel; Veiga de Camargo, Pedro; Ritchie, Stephen G.
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 268
  Paper Number: 13-1962
  Practice-Ready: Yes
• Dynamic Collection Scheduling Using Remote Asset Monitoring: Case Study in Charity Sector
  Authors: Cherrett, Tom
  Authors: Cherrett, Tom
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 268
  Paper Number: 13-1814
• Modeling Resilience Enhancement Strategies for International Express Logistics
  Authors: Chen, Cheng-Chieh
  Authors: Chen, Cheng-Chieh
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 268
  Paper Number: 13-1869
• Geographic Scalability and Supply Chain Elasticity of a Structural Commodity Generation Model Using Public Data
  Authors: Ranaiefar, Fatemeh
  Authors: Ranaiefar, Fatemeh
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 268
  Paper Number: 13-1962
• Modeling of Greenhouse Gas Emission Mitigation Strategies in the Trucking Sector: Methodology
  Authors: Guerrero, Sebastian
  Authors: Guerrero, Sebastian
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 268
  Paper Number: 13-5137
• Routing and Scheduling Approach for Urgent Material Distribution Problem
  Authors: Yang, Xianfeng
  Authors: Yang, Xianfeng
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting
  Session: 268
  Paper Number: 13-4343