Improving the Reliability of Freight Transportation

This research report is focused on applying advanced tools and techniques to the analysis of reliability and efficiency for freight transportation. It deals primarily with truck-related pickup and delivery activities in urban areas, but the tools are applicable to other modes and multi-modal systems. The topic is important because of the economic value that results from minimizing the resource consumption associated with freight activity. As is well recognized, a local carrier’s objective is to accomplish pickups and deliveries within on-time windows (OTWs) a very high percentage of the time. Carriers measure their performance based on arrival, loading, and departure events, since all three relate to the perceived service quality by the customers, competitors, and other stakeholders, including society at large. These events are deemed to be “on-time”, and therefore reliably executed, if they occur within specified, acceptable windows. In the context of this research work, the implication is to find assignments of service requests (for pickup and/or delivery) to trucks and then service sequences and network paths (from one service request to another) that maximize on-time performance at minimal cost (or other impact). These two objectives are not necessarily co-linear, so a tradeoff may be involved. The challenge is to find vehicle assignment and routing solutions that achieve the best balance between these two objectives.

• Record URL:
  http://ntc.umd.edu/sites/default/files/documents/research/NTC2015-MU-R-10.pdf
• 
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This document was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
• Corporate Authors:

  National Transportation Center at Maryland

  1124 Glenn Martin Hall
  University of Maryland
  College Park, MD  United States  20742

  North Carolina State University

  Raleigh, NC  United States 

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • List, George
  • Byrom, Elizabeth
  • Addison, Jeremy
  • Morsali, Atefeh
• Publication Date: 2018-6

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 51p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Freight transportation; Genetic algorithms; Logistics; Networks; On time performance; Pickup and delivery service; Quality of service; Reliability; Routing; Travel time; Urban areas
• Uncontrolled Terms: Vehicle assignment
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01678973
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: NTC2015-MU-R-10
• Files: UTC, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Aug 27 2018 2:05PM