Multiple depots vehicle routing and scheduling optimization with inventory transfer

Abstract

Inventory transfer is frequently used in real-life logistics transport, where a positive strategy of inventory transfer is essential for cost saving. This research studies the inventory transfer in multiple depots vehicle routing and scheduling to minimize the total cost and improve the vehicle full load rate. The research focuses on the constructing of multiple objectives model, which considers inventory transfer strategy, carpooling strategy, multiple vehicle types, multiple warehouse and other various scheduling rules. The computational experiments show that the multiple depots vehicle routing and scheduling model works quite well. Specifically, compared with the actual logistics operation data, the results calculated by the model have lower cost and higher vehicle full load rate. Moreover, it can be concluded from the results that the more the vehicle types combinations are, the better the optimization results are, and the larger the carpooling distance range is, the better the optimization results are.