Long-haul shipment optimization for less-than-truckload carriers

Abstract

Less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers supply freight transportation services for small parcel shipments. These companies consolidate multiple shipments in vehicles to guarantee the efficiency of the system. A method for LTL carriers is presented to solve the long-haul routing design problem with capacitated distribution centers and time-constrained shipments. The method uses direct, hub-and-spoke, and stopover strategies to allocate shipments in the set of routes. The resolution method is based on a tabu search algorithm. The search process in the solution domain is performed dynamically with four possible perturbations. The results obtained in a set of test problems demonstrate that the restart parameters play a significant role in the efficiency of the algorithm. Implementation of this computational technique in the long-haul operations network of the largest carrier in Spain reduced transportation costs by 6%.