Segurança e saúde dos motoristas profissionais que trafegam nas rodovias do Brasil

Acidentes de trânsito com consequentes lesões e mortes têm se tornado uma epidemia em nível mundial. No Brasil, a maioria dos motoristas profissionais, sobretudo motoristas de transporte de cargas, enfrenta jornada de trabalho irregular e permanece acordado por mais de 18 horas/dia, o que reduz seu desempenho e estado de alerta. Neste artigo, discutimos as leis dos motoristas profissionais brasileiros e suas alterações vigentes (nº 12.619/2012 e nº 13.103/2015) em relação às horas de trabalho ao volante e a pausas para descanso, imprescindíveis para a qualidade de vida dos motoristas e para a sociedade em geral. Observamos que a nova legislação se mostra menos eficiente que a anterior por causar insegurança e preocupação aos usuários do sistema de transporte, aos próprios motoristas e aos empregadores. Para restringir e reduzir acidentes, mortes e lesões no trânsito, é fundamental uma legislação adequada, que vise à segurança do trabalhador e dos usuários das rodovias. A legislação deve, também, beneficiar o aspecto comercial, que se fortalece pela redução das perdas de produção e logística. Adicionalmente, são necessários programas de educação no trânsito e melhor fiscalização em relação ao tempo total de jornada de trabalho.Traffic accidents and resulting injuries and deaths have become a global epidemic. In Brazil, most professional drivers, especially truck drivers, face irregular working hours and can be awake for more than 18 hours/day, which reduces their performance and alertness. In this article, we discuss the laws related to Brazilian professional drivers and their current amendments (No. 12,619/2012 and No. 13,103/2015) in relation to working hours at the wheel and rest breaks, which are vital for the quality of life of drivers and society in general. We note that the new law appears to be less efficient than the previous one as it causes insecurity and concern to the users of the transportation system, drivers, and employers. To restrict and reduce accidents, deaths, and injuries in traffic, appropriate legislation is essential, aiming at the safety of workers and users of highways. The law must also benefit the commercial aspect, strengthening the reduction in production and logistics losses. Additionally, traffic education programs are needed, as well as better supervision in relation to total working hours

Parcel lockers vs. home delivery: a model to compare last-mile delivery cost in urban and rural areas

Purpose This paper investigates the economic performances of two business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce last-mile delivery options -parcel lockers (PLs) and traditional home delivery (HD) in contexts where e-commerce is still at its early stages. It analyses and compares two different implementation contexts, urban and rural areas. Design/methodology/approach This study develops an analytical model that estimates delivery costs for both the PL and HD options. The model is applied to two base cases (representative of urban and rural areas in Italy), and sensitivity analyses are subsequently performed on a set of key variables/parameters (i.e. PL density, PL fill rate and PL annual costs). To support the model development and application, interviews with practitioners (Edwards et al., 2011) were performed. Findings PLs imply lower delivery cost than HD, independently from the implementation area (urban or rural): advantages mainly derive from the higher delivery density and the drastic reduction of failed deliveries. Benefits entailed by PLs are more significant in rural areas due to lower PL investments and annual costs, as well as higher HD costs. Originality/value This paper offers insights to both academics and practitioners. On the academic side, it develops a model to compare the delivery cost of PL and HD, which includes the analysis of urban and rural contexts. This could serve as a platform for developing/informing future analytical/optimisation contributions. On the managerial side, it may support practitioners in making decisions about the implementation of PLs and HD, to benchmark their costs and to identify the main variables and parameters at play

Planning of Truck Platoons: a Literature Review and Directions for Future Research

A truck platoon is a set of virtually linked trucks that drive closely behind one another using automated driving technology. Benefits of truck platooning include cost savings, reduced emissions, and more efficient utilization of road capacity. To fully reap these benefits in the initial phases requires careful planning of platoons based on trucks’ itineraries and time schedules. This paper provides a framework to classify various new transportation planning problems that arise in truck platooning, surveys relevant operations research models for these problems in the literature and identifies directions for future research

The Bi-objective Long-haul Transportation Problem on a Road Network

In this paper we study a long-haul truck scheduling problem where a path has to be determined for a vehicle traveling from a specified origin to a specified destination. We consider refueling decisions along the path, while accounting for heterogeneous fuel prices in a road network. Furthermore, the path has to comply with Hours of Service (HoS) regulations. Therefore, a path is defined by the actual road trajectory traveled by the vehicle, as well as the locations where the vehicle stops due to refueling, compliance with HoS regulations, or a combination of the two. This setting is cast in a bi-objective optimization problem, considering the minimization of fuel cost and the minimization of path duration. An algorithm is proposed to solve the problem on a road network. The algorithm builds a set of non-dominated paths with respect to the two objectives. Given the enormous theoretical size of the road network, the algorithm follows an interactive path construction mechanism. Specifically, the algorithm dynamically interacts with a geographic information system to identify the relevant potential paths and stop locations. Computational tests are made on real-sized instances where the distance covered ranges from 500 to 1500 km. The algorithm is compared with solutions obtained from a policy mimicking the current practice of a logistics company. The results show that the non-dominated solutions produced by the algorithm significantly dominate the ones generated by the current practice, in terms of fuel costs, while achieving similar path durations. The average number of non-dominated paths is 2.7, which allows decision makers to ultimately visually inspect the proposed alternatives

A Framework to Model and Compare Rest Break Policies in Logistics Industry

Carriers and postal companies are under increasing pressure to reduce their operating costs and increase efficiency. One way to reduce costs is to improve the utilisation of drivers’ working hours by employing more efficient rest break policies. A rest break policy is a set of rules consistent with (but more restrictive than) national regulations for Hours of Service (HOS). We develop and test a novel framework to model a class of these policies that concern the location of the rest breaks. In particular, we compare two representative rest break policies using data from a major Australian postal carrier. The first policy imposes no restriction on the location of a rest break. The second policy requires the driver to return to a depot for rest taking allowing time for socialising with others and making use of full amenities at the depot. Our numerical experiments focus on investigating the impact of each policy on postal delivery services in Sydney Metropolitan Area. Our analysis arrives at some interesting managerial insights and identifies important directions for future research in this area

Roteirização e programação de veículos com carga completa em viagens de longa distância

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Produção, Florianópolis, 2015.O objetivo desta tese consiste em resolver o problema de roteamento e programação de caminhões, com restrições de horário de trabalho do motorista profissional impostas pela legislação (HOS), considerando carga completa e viagens de longa distância, de modo a minimizar os custos totais de operação. Diferentemente de outros trabalhos encontrados na literatura, nesta tese a rota e os locais de parada são determinados concomitantemente com a programação da operação. Este problema foi modelado através de um grafo, para o qual três algoritmos de busca foram aplicados. Testes realizados mostram que o método de solução proposto reage adequadamente às mudanças realizadas nos custos dos serviços oferecidos nos diversos locais de parada existentes, tanto no que se refere a escolha da rota, como dos locais em que as paradas deverão ser realizadas. Os resultados obtidos indicam, ainda, que soluções de mínimo custo podem ser encontradas com baixo tempo computacional.Abstract : The main goal of this thesis is to solve the problem of routing and scheduling of trucks, with professional driver working time restrictions imposed by legislation (HOS), considering fully loaded trucks and long-distance work journeys, in order to minimize the total costs of operation. Differently from other studies found in the literature, in this thesis the route and stopping points locations are determined concomitantly with the scheduling. This problem was modeled by a graph, for which three search algorithms were applied. Tests show that the proposed method reacts appropriately to changes made in the costs of services provided under the various stopping places, both as regards the choice of route, such as the locations where the stops will be performed. The results also indicate that low-cost solutions can be found with low computational time

Designing and Scheduling Cost-Efficient Tours by Using the Concept of Truck Platooning

Truck Platooning is a promising new technology to reduce the fuel consumption by around 15% via the exploitation of a preceding and digitally connected truck’s slipstream. However, the cost-efficient coordination of such platoons under consideration of mandatory EU driving time restrictions turns out to be a highly complex task. For this purpose, we provide a comprehensive literature review and formulate the exact EU-Truck Platooning Problem (EU-TPP) as an Integer Linear Program (ILP) which also features a hypothetical task-relieving effect for following drivers in a convoy. In order to increase the computational efficiency, we introduce an auxiliary constraint and two hierarchical planning-based matheuristic approaches: the Shortest Path Heuristic (SPH) and the Platoon Routing Heuristic (PRH). Besides a qualitative sensitivity analysis, we perform an extensive numerical study to investigate the impact of different critical influence factors on platooning, being of major political and economic interest. Our experiments with the EU-TPP suggest remarkable fuel cost savings of up to 10.83% without a 50% task relief, while its inclusion leads to additional personnel cost savings of up to even 31.86% at best with maximally 12 trucks to be coordinated in a recreated part of the European highway network. Moreover, we prove our matheuristics’ highly favorable character in terms of solution quality and processing time. Keywords: autonomous transport; Truck Platooning; driving time and rest periods; cost-efficient routing & scheduling; computational efficiency