A Decision Support System (DSS) for the heuristic allocation and routing of vehicles in urban freight transportation

Abstract

Solve a strategic operational problem for a company, requires mathematical modeling and computing power, therefore, it requires computational tools that contribute to decision support system (DSS). The development for the suboptimal planning and distribution of freight vehicles in its logistics network is presented. It is considered contributing to two problems NP-Hard, the allocation (strategic) and routing of vehicles with time intervals for deliveries to the customer locations (operative, known as VRPTW) in order to minimize the total travel time and cost of the logistics operation, with capacity restrictions and client’s time intervals for deliveries. Furthermore, the research considers data obtained from real scenarios, which is why they are classified as combinatorial problems on a large scale. The logistics problem involved in urban freight transportation is approached as a VRPTW, where several optimization algorithms are used to solve sub-models of the mayor complex model, resulting in hybrid solution approach that involves metaheuristics and heuristics. By using the Snow methodology, which considers cases of a company, a web-based application is developed, such as a successful DSS, which allows suboptimal solution to large-scale problems and the improvement in the urban freight logistic problem in a city of Colombia.