Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of study is to solve the multi-modal transportation routing planning problem that aims to select an optimal route to move a consignment of goods from its origin to its destination through the multi-modal transportation network. And the optimization is from two viewpoints including cost and time. Design/methodology/approach: In this study, a bi-objective mixed integer linear programming model is proposed to optimize the multi-modal transportation routing planning problem. Minimizing the total transportation cost and the total transportation time are set as the optimization objectives of the model. In order to balance the benefit between the two objectives, Pareto optimality is utilized to solve the model by gaining its Pareto frontier. The Pareto frontier of the model can provide the multi-modal transportation operator (MTO) and customers with better decision support and it is gained by the normalized normal constraint method. Then, an experimental case study is designed to verify the feasibility of the model and Pareto optimality by using the mathematical programming software Lingo. Finally, the sensitivity analysis of the demand and supply in the multi-modal transportation organization is performed based on the designed case. Findings: The calculation results indicate that the proposed model and Pareto optimality have good performance in dealing with the bi-objective optimization. The sensitivity analysis also shows the influence of the variation of the demand and supply on the multi-modal transportation organization clearly. Therefore, this method can be further promoted to the practice. Originality/value: A bi-objective mixed integer linear programming model is proposed to optimize the multi-modal transportation routing planning problem. The Pareto frontier based sensitivity analysis of the demand and supply in the multi-modal transportation organization is performed based on the designed case.
Highlights
With the rapid development of social economy and the continuous prosperity of the freight market, freight transportation among different regions and nations has become increasingly frequent
The sensitivity analysis shows the influence of the variation of the demand and supply on the multi-modal transportation organization clearly
The Pareto frontier based sensitivity analysis of the demand and supply in the multi-modal transportation organization is performed based on the designed case
Summary
With the rapid development of social economy and the continuous prosperity of the freight market, freight transportation among different regions and nations has become increasingly frequent. Many new tendencies, such as long distance, multi consignments and high timeliness, emerged in the freight transportation system. Multi-modal transportation applies at least two transportation modes in a transportation scheme to accomplish the transportation of a consignment of goods from its origin to destination (Atalay, Canci, Kaya, Oguz & Türkay, 2010; Caris, Macharis & Janssens, 2008) It combines the respective advantages of different transportation modes and performs lower cost, better flexibility, higher efficiency and other advantages in the freight transportation organization. It has gradually replaced the traditional uni-modal transportation to be the most popular means of transportation for both transportation operators and customers
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