Type-2 Fuzzy Stochastic Transportation Problem with Gamma Distribution

Abstract

The transportation problem in real-life is an uncertain problem. Particularly when goods are transported from the source to destinations with the best transportation setup that satisfies the decision maker's preferences by taking into account the competing objectives/criteria such as maintaining exact relationships between a few linear parameters, such as actual transportation fee/total transportation cost, delivery fee/desired path, total return/total investment, etc. Due to the uncertainty of nature, such a relationship is not deterministic. In this stochastic transportation problem supplies are considered as fuzzy random variables, which follow fuzzy gamma distribution, with shape parameter α and scale parameter β. Here β is a perfectly normal interval type-2 fuzzy random variable. This paper proposes a solution methodology for solving the fuzzy stochastic transportation problem, where fuzziness and randomness occur under one roof. Therefore, we converted it to an equivalent deterministic mathematical programming problem by applying the following two steps. In the first step of the solution procedure, fuzziness is removed by using alpha-cut technique to obtain stochastic transportation problem. In the second step, the stochastic transportation problem is converted to an equivalent crisp transportation problem using the chance constrained technique. This mathematical model is solved by existing methodology or software. In order to illustrate the methodology a case study is provided.