Applying revenue management to agent-based transportation planning

We consider a multi-company, less-than-truckload, dynamic VRP based on the concept of multi-agent systems. We focus on the intelligence of one vehicle agent and especially on its bidding strategy. We address the problem how to price loads that are offered in real-time such that available capacity is used in the most profitable way taking into account possible future revenues. We develop methods to price loads dynamically based on revenue management concepts.\ud We consider a one leg problem, i.e., a vehicle travels from i to j and can wait at most τ time units in which it can get additional loads from i to j. We develop a DP to price loads given a certain amount of remaining capacity and an expected number of auctions in the time-to-go. Because a DP might be impractical if parameters change frequently and bids has to be determined in real-time, we derived two approximations to speed up calculations. The performance of these approximations are compared with the performance of the DP. Besides we introduce a new measure to calculate the average vehicle utilisation in consolidated shipments. This measure can be calculated based on a limited amount of data and gives an indication of the efficiency of schedules and the performance of vehicles

Milk Run Design: Definitions, Concepts and Solution Approaches

Efficient inbound networks in the European automotive industry rely on a set of different transport concepts including milk runs - understood as regularly scheduled pickup tours. The complexity of designing such a mixed network makes decision support necessary: In this thesis we provide definitions, mathematical models and a solution method for the Milk Run Design problem and introduce indicators assessing the performance of established milk runs in relation to alternative transport concepts

Milk Run Design: Definitions, Concepts and Solution Approaches

Efficient inbound networks in the European automotive industry rely on a set of different transport concepts including milk runs - understood as regularly scheduled pickup tours. The complexity of designing such a mixed network makes decision support necessary: In this book we provide definitions, mathematical models and a solution method for the Milk Run Design problem and introduce indicators assessing the performance of established milk runs in relation to alternative transport concepts

Comparison of agent-based scheduling to look-ahead heuristics for real-time transportation problems

We consider the real-time scheduling of full truckload transportation orders with time windows that arrive during schedule execution. Because a fast scheduling method is required, look-ahead heuristics are traditionally used to solve these kinds of problems. As an alternative, we introduce an agent-based approach where intelligent vehicle agents schedule their own routes. They interact with job agents, who strive for minimum transportation costs, using a Vickrey auction for each incoming order. This approach offers several advantages: it is fast, requires relatively little information and facilitates easy schedule adjustments in reaction to information updates. We compare the agent-based approach to more traditional hierarchical heuristics in an extensive simulation experiment. We find that a properly designed multiagent approach performs as good as or even better than traditional methods. Particularly, the multi-agent approach yields less empty miles and a more stable service level

Scheduled service network design with synchronization and transshipment constraints for intermodal container transportation networks

In this paper we address the problem of scheduled service network design for container freight distribution along rivers, canals, and coastlines. We propose a new concise continuous- time mixed-integer linear programming model that accurately evaluates the time of occurrence of transportation events and the number of containers transshipped between vehicles. Given the transportation network, the eet of available vehicles, the demand and the supply of containers, the sailing time of vehicles, and the structure of costs, the objective of the model is to build a minimum cost service network design and container distribution plan that denes services, their departure and arrival times, as well as vehicle and container routing. The model is solved with a commercial solver and is tested on data instances inspired from real-world problems encountered by EU carrier companies. The results of the computational study show that in scheduled service networks direct routes happen more often when either the eet capacity is tight or the handling costs and the lead time interval increase. The increase of the same parameters leads to the decrease of the number of containers transshipped between vehicles

Dynamics in Logistics

This open access book highlights the interdisciplinary aspects of logistics research. Featuring empirical, methodological, and practice-oriented articles, it addresses the modelling, planning, optimization and control of processes. Chiefly focusing on supply chains, logistics networks, production systems, and systems and facilities for material flows, the respective contributions combine research on classical supply chain management, digitalized business processes, production engineering, electrical engineering, computer science and mathematical optimization. To celebrate 25 years of interdisciplinary and collaborative research conducted at the Bremen Research Cluster for Dynamics in Logistics (LogDynamics), in this book hand-picked experts currently or formerly affiliated with the Cluster provide retrospectives, present cutting-edge research, and outline future research directions

Quantifying Opportunity Costs in Sequential Transportation Auctions for Truckload Acquisition

The principal focus of this research is to quantify opportunity costs in sequential transportation auctions. This paper focuses on the study a transportation marketplace with time-sensitive truckload pickup-and-delivery requests. In this paper, two carriers compete for service requests; each arriving service request triggers an auction where carriers compete with each other to win the right of servicing the load. An expression to evaluate opportunity costs is derived. This paper shows that the impact of evaluating opportunity costs is dependent on the competitive market setting. A simulation framework is used to evaluate different strategies. Some results and the overall simulation framework are also discussed

Economic effects of mobile technologies on operations of sales agents

In the presented paper we introduce an approach to assess particular economic effects which may arise with bringing mobile technologies into the field of sales and distribution. The research problem posed here comprises quite a special case where sales operations of a company are carried by its sales representatives, which may count as a resource allocation problem. We apply stochastic programming methodology to model the agent's multistage decision making in a distribution system with uncertain customer demands, and exemplify a potential improvement in the company's overall performance when mobile facilities are utilized for making decisions. We provide finally an efficient computational algorithm that delivers optimal decision making with and without mobile technologies, and computers the expected overall performance in both cases, for any configuration of a distribution system. Some computational results are presented. --