A new two‐phase heuristic for a problem of food distribution with compartmentalized trucks and trailers

Abstract

This paper presents a new formulation for the routing problem in which the available fleet consists of trucks and trailers divided into compartments. Solving the model for large instances is computationally expensive. Therefore, we introduce and implemented a two-phase heuristic algorithm. In the first phase, an initial solution is generated through a constructive heuristic algorithm based on concepts from the classic Clarke-Wright algorithm. In the second phase, the initial solution is improved by an iterated tabu search metaheuristic. Our algorithm was tested on 21 instances that were converted from the classic truck and trailer routing problem. The results of our computational study prove the effectiveness of our proposal; the algorithm always finds a feasible solution, which in small-sized problems it is proven to be of good quality. In addition, the algorithm outperforms previous approaches for some truck and trailer routing problem instances. Furthermore, an application of the proposed model and heuristic is demonstrated in the field of agricultural logistics by comparing the obtained results.

Disposable or reusable? Packaging strategy and pricing decision for fresh food considering environmental policies

“…(2022), and Nguyen and Chen (2022). In the sector of transportation or distribution, scholars optimize routing and distribution decisions (Chan et al., 2020; Davila‐Pena et al., 2023). Different preservation conditions are needed to distribute different sorts of fresh food, as a result, the carriage of refrigerated trucks is divided into several regions to make joint replenishment, and this operational issue is modeled by Derigs et al.…”

“…In the field of production and inventory, ordering, inventory, and replenishment decisions are discussed considering food deterioration and demand uncertainty, such as Constantin and Hassan (2020), Yang et al (2022), and Nguyen and Chen (2022). In the sector of transportation or distribution, scholars optimize routing and distribution decisions (Chan et al, 2020;Davila-Pena et al, 2023). Different preservation conditions are needed to distribute different sorts of fresh food, as a result, the carriage of refrigerated trucks is divided into several regions to make joint replenishment, and this operational issue is modeled by Derigs et al (2011).…”

Analysis and Empirical Study of Factors Influencing Urban Residents’ Acceptance of Routine Drone Deliveries

“…At present, most academic research and real-world operations focus on the optimization of traditional transport distribution routes and the improvement of existing management modes. Overall, the effectiveness produced by these methods has been somewhat limited in recent years [2] since traditional transport modes are generally fixed in stone and can only be optimized at a micro level. Therefore, if logistics service providers wish to achieve more effective breakthroughs in improving distribution operations than they have in the past, they may have to seek a new distribution method in the future.…”