An integrated transportation-inventory model with carbon emission and its impact on the total cost bounds

Abstract

In the literature amathematical model had been presented to transport a homogeneous product from multi-source to multi-destination, to meet the demand of each destination at a time. Both the demand and the supply were assumed to vary within a certain range. The total cost bounds of transportation were obtained by using the LINGO solver. Here we emphasize that carbon emission, and inventory cost of a product during transportation and in destinations is an important factors in deciding these cost bounds. Besides, consideration of some realistic constraints such as transport vehicle capacity and transport load limitation on a given route is also an important factor. Based on this notion, we extend the original model to include these carbon emission and inventory costs along with some realistic constraints and use the same solver to find out the total cost bounds. Numerical studies demonstrate that such an integration of carbon emission, inventory and transportation costs changes the total cost bounds reasonably. The conclusion is drawn by discussing the limitations of the current model and highlighting the scope for further research. MSC Classification Code: 90B06, 90B25, 90B50