A survey of finished vehicle distribution and related problems from an optimization perspective
01 May 2021-Transportation Research Part E-logistics and Transportation Review (Pergamon)-Vol. 149, pp 102302
TL;DR: This survey paper critiques the optimization studies on the distribution of finished vehicles from automobile manufacturers to dealers in the past three decades and proposes promising prospective research to minimize the gap between industrial practice and academic research.
Abstract: In this survey paper, we critique the optimization studies on the distribution of finished vehicles from automobile manufacturers to dealers in the past three decades and propose promising prospective research to minimize the gap between industrial practice and academic research. First, we identify major decision makers involved in automobile distribution, summarize service models, and briefly describe the automobile shipping practice by transportation mode. After defining the automobile shipping optimization problem at the operational level, we present the automobile distribution problem taxonomy by classifying existing studies by the level of decision making, mode of transportation, and type of optimization decisions. Each subcategory of studies is reviewed in detail through comparisons by objective function, constraints, formulation, solution algorithm, and test instances. We conclude this survey paper by summarizing major review outcomes and proposing potential research directions. This survey will stimulate interested transportation researchers to conduct further research to keep pace with the rapid evolution of the automobile shipping practice.
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18 Nov 2016
5 citations
01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: In this paper, an integer programming formulation of the Auto-Carrier Transportation (ACT) problem is provided and a three-step heuristic procedure strongly based on the IP formulation, which considers loading, vehicle selection and routing aspects, is proposed.
Abstract: The delivery of vehicles to dealers is one of the major tasks in the vehicle production industry. It has relied on transportation companies that use special tractor-trailer trucks called auto-carriers. One of the main problems these companies have to solve is the optimal loading and routing of the auto-carriers, referred to as the Auto-Carrier Transportation (ACT) problem. In this paper we provide an integer programming formulation of the ACT problem and show that the problem isNP-hard in the strong sense. A three-step heuristic procedure stronglybased on the IP formulation, which considers loading, vehicle selection, and routing aspects, is proposed. An application to a real case studyof a vehicle transportation company located in northern Italyis given, with an average deviation lower than 3% from an upper bound on the optimal solution value.
3 citations
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TL;DR: A case study performed in collaboration with a German railcar rental company is discussed to provide reasonable algorithmic support for a specific empty railcar distribution problem.
Abstract: Abstract Empty railcar distribution problems are considered to be at the very heart of freight traffic. Whereas mathematical models and theoretical results for corresponding network flow problems are widespread throughout the literature the respective carrying forward into real-world applications still needs to be pushed ahead. In this paper we discuss a case study performed in collaboration with a German railcar rental company. The primary objective is to provide reasonable algorithmic support for a specific empty railcar distribution problem. In this respect the main task lies in comparing a simple heuristic approach with one of the older network flow approaches.
3 citations
01 Jan 2007
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a business scheme based on an integer linear program (ILP) to minimize the total distribution costs by making mode and ramp selection decisions in an automotive distribution network.
Abstract: This paper studies the design of an automotive distribution network that has two transportation modes: railway and highway. In the automotive industry, a mode selection decision should be made for each plant-dealer pair. If railway is selected as the transportation mode for a pair, then the location of the ramp (automotive distribution center) also needs to be selected. Because lead-time influences the turnaround rate of expensive railcars for automotive distribution and because volume has a large impact on the total lead-time from a plant to a railway ramp, the paper considers quantity discounts in railway cost structures. In practice, multiple rounds of manual negotiations take place between automakers and railway companies to determine rates and finalize contracts. This paper proposes a business scheme that is based on an integer linear program (ILP) to minimize the total distribution costs by making mode and ramp selection decisions. The manual negotiation process is also simulated in this paper so that the ILP-based model can be compared to the simulated model. The numerical experiments based on randomly created instances show that the solutions obtained from the ILP significantly outperform the results of the simulated manual negotiation process. The real-world instances of the ILP can be solved by commercial optimization solvers in a small amount of time (several seconds). Another interesting finding is that with respect to payments to railways the ILP-based and the negotiation-based business schemes lead to results that are not statistically different. Therefore, the proposed ILP-based business scheme is incentive compatible and technically feasible for both automakers and railway companies.
1 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper , the authors identify 135 articles published in scholarly, academic journals from January 2005 to June 2022 that survey various aspects of the vehicle routing problem (VRP), ranging from exact and heuristic solution methods to new problem variants such as drone routing to new research areas such as green routing.
Abstract: We identify 135 articles published in scholarly, academic journals from January 2005 to June 2022 that survey various aspects of the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) ranging from exact and heuristic solution methods to new problem variants such as drone routing to new research areas such as green routing. We catalog and classify these articles, make key observations about publication history and overall contributions, and identify trends in VRP research and practice. Our book should be valuable to researchers and practioners with ongoing or unfolding research efforts into the VRP.
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TL;DR: A main point of the paper is seeing generic optimization problems as data points and inquiring what is the relevant distribution of problems to use for learning on a given task.
Abstract: This paper surveys the recent attempts, both from the machine learning and operations research communities, at leveraging machine learning to solve combinatorial optimization problems. Given the hard nature of these problems, state-of-the-art algorithms rely on handcrafted heuristics for making decisions that are otherwise too expensive to compute or mathematically not well defined. Thus, machine learning looks like a natural candidate to make such decisions in a more principled and optimized way. We advocate for pushing further the integration of machine learning and combinatorial optimization and detail a methodology to do so. A main point of the paper is seeing generic optimization problems as data points and inquiring what is the relevant distribution of problems to use for learning on a given task.
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TL;DR: This work reviews research on ship routing and scheduling and related problems during the new millennium and provides four basic models in this domain and over a hundred new refereed papers on this topic during the last decade.
490 citations
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TL;DR: A survey of machine learning and combinatorial optimization problems can be found in this paper, where the main point is to see generic optimization problems as data points and inquire what is the relevant distribution of problems to use for learning on a given task.
464 citations