European Journal of Operational Research 223 (2012) 626–636

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European Journal of Operational Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ejor

Discrete Optimization

A methodology to solve large-scale cooperative transportation planning problems

Ralf Sprenger, Lars Mönch ⇑
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Hagen, 58097 Hagen, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, we suggest a methodology to solve a cooperative transportation planning problem and to
Received 12 April 2011 assess its performance. The problem is motivated by a real-world scenario found in the German food
Accepted 15 July 2012 industry. Several manufacturers with same customers but complementary food products share their
Available online 25 July 2012
vehicle fleets to deliver their customers. After an appropriate decomposition of the entire problem into
sub problems, we obtain a set of rich vehicle routing problems (VRPs) with time windows for the delivery
Keywords: of the orders, capacity constraints, maximum operating times for the vehicles, and outsourcing options.
Transportation
Each of the resulting sub problems is solved by a greedy heuristic that takes the distance of the locations
Cooperative transportation planning
Rich VRP
of customers and the time window constraints into account. The greedy heuristic is improved by an
Rolling horizon appropriate Ant Colony System (ACS). The suggested heuristics to solve the problem are assessed within
Discrete event simulation a dynamic and stochastic environment in a rolling horizon setting using discrete event simulation. We
Performance assessment in a stochastic describe the used simulation infrastructure. The results of extensive simulation experiments based on
environment randomly generated problem instances and scenarios are provided and discussed. We show that the
cooperative setting outperforms the non-cooperative one.
Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction This paper deals with cooperative transportation planning. The

Transportation planning problems are important for the
German food industry because of an increasing competition among
the manufacturers and smaller margins. In this paper, we consider
a real-world situation where several manufacturers with same or
overlapping customers but complementary food products collabo-
rate by jointly using their vehicle fleets to reduce delivery costs.
The different products are delivered to selected first-class hotels.
Therefore, small delivery quantities are typical. Achieving high
on-time delivery performance is an important goal in this context.
There are different types of deliveries in the researched real-
world setting. In the simplest case, a manufacturer uses own vehi-
cles at its manufacturing location and delivers the orders to the
customers. Depending on the geographical location of the custom-
ers and the capacity of the vehicles, it might be more promising
that the manufacturer runs an intermediate distribution center in
a far-away region, locates own vehicles there, and delivers orders
from the intermediate distribution center to the customers. An ex-
press company delivers the orders from the manufacturing loca-
tion to this intermediate distribution center. Using an express
company leads to additional costs and requires more time. The
third and most expensive delivery type is to carry out a direct
transport from the manufacturing location to a single customer
by an express company.
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 0 23319874592; fax: +49 0 23319874519.
E-mail addresses: Ralf.Sprenger@fernuni-hagen.de (R. Sprenger), Lars.Moench@
fernuni-hagen.de (L. Mönch).
basic idea consists in offering the option that different manufactur-
ers share their own vehicles either at the manufacturing locations
or at the distribution centers to reduce costs and to improve the
on-time delivery performance. Problems of this type are rarely
studied in the literature so far. To the best of our knowledge, coop-
erative problems similar to ours are studied only by Shang and Cuff
(1996) and by Lin (2008). But there is some literature on transpor-
tation planning with outsourcing options that covers some specif-
ics of our problem (cf. Lee et al., 2003; Zäpfel and Bögl, 2008). In
this paper, we propose a heuristic that decomposes the overall
problem into a set of problems containing a smaller number of or-
ders. We will show that each of the smaller problems, so called sub
problems, can be efficiently solved by ant colony optimization
(ACO). Using discrete event simulation, we are able to show that
the ACO approach outperforms a greedy heuristic and the cooper-
ative approach the non-cooperative in the case of stochastic distur-
bances when it is applied in a rolling horizon setting.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we describe the
problem. Related literature is discussed in Section 3. The problem
is decomposed into different sub problems to deal with the prob-
lem size that is found in real-world scenarios in Section 4. The
resulting sub problems form rich VRPs that are solved by a greedy
heuristic and improved by an ACO type heuristic. In Section 5, we
start by describing a simulation framework to assess the perfor-
mance of the heuristic in a dynamic and stochastic setting. Results
of simulation experiments based on randomly generated scenarios

0377-2217/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2012.07.021
 R. Sprenger, L. Mönch / European Journal of Operational Research 223 (2012) 626–636 627

are presented. Finally, we present conclusions and discuss some fu- ~ro point of time when o is ordered
ture research directions in Section 6. ro point of time when the goods associated with o
are ready for delivery
2. Problem statement
wo:¼[lo,uo] time window associated with o, where lo and uo
are the earliest and latest time, respectively to
In this section, we start by summarizing some basic notation.
complete the delivery of order o to co
We then describe the problem.
so delivery date of order o, i.e., the point of time
2.1. Notation when the order arrives at its customer location
qo capacity demand of order o
Transportation network related: to lateness of order o with respect to uo.

m2M index of the main manufacturing location of a

single manufacturer, where M is the set of all 2.2. Problem description
manufacturers
c2C index of a customer, where C is the set of all We study a transportation network that consists of manufactur-
customers ers with one main manufacturing location m 2 M, intermediate
i2I index of an intermediate distribution center, distribution centers i 2 I, and customers c 2 C. In the following,
where I is the set of all intermediate distribution the term distribution location dl 2 DL is used for manufacturing
centers locations as well as for intermediate distribution centers if a differ-
dl 2 DL index of a single distribution location, where DL is entiation is not necessary. Both types of locations are able to deli-
the set of all distribution locations, DL = M [ I ver orders to customers.
l2L index of a single location, where L is the set of all Each manufacturer owns a given number of vehicles v 2 V that
locations, L:¼DL [ C are located at the distribution locations of this manufacturer. The
e2E index of a single express company, where E is the number of vehicles is small with respect to the expected transpor-
set of all express companies tation demand. We assume that all the vehicles are identical and
rmax maximum number of days (horizon) that a single vehicle has a capacity of 15 orders. The first assump-
ð1Þ
ce ðd; qÞ cost for carrying out the delivery to a distribution tion is motivated by the real-world scenario where vehicles of type
location by an express company e, where d Mercedes Benz Sprinter are used. However, the assumption of
denotes the distance that is traveled by the identical vehicles is not crucial for the algorithms and the simula-
vehicles of the express company, and q is the tion approach proposed in the paper. The second assumption is
requested capacity of the express company based on the fact that in the real-world scenario the majority of or-
ð2Þ
ce ðd; qÞ cost for direct transportation of orders from a der quantities are small and therefore, a small number of E2 boxes,
manufacturing location to a customer by an typically five, are enough for each order. Such boxes are most com-
express company e, where d denotes the distance monly used in the food production industry in Europe. Therefore,
that is traveled by the vehicles of the express we assume in this paper for the sake of simplicity that all orders
company and q is the requested capacity of the have the same volume. The vehicles can only operate within the
express company daily availability period of its distribution location, i.e., hdv. The
qe
ð1Þr total volume at day r that is transported by daily availability period corresponds to the daily opening time of
express company e to one of the distribution hdv.
locations Orders o 2 O are ordered by customers co at time ~r o and are
de
ð1Þr traveled distance of the express company e to one available at time ro at the corresponding manufacturer for delivery.
of the distribution locations at day r The difference r o  ~r o is the time that an order o needs to get ready
qe
ð2Þr volume that is directly transported by the express for delivery. When the arrival time of the vehicle at the location of
company e to a customer at day r customer co is smaller than lo, the vehicle has to wait until the
de
ð2Þr traveled distance of the express company e to a beginning of the time window before servicing the customer. Note
customer at day r corrected by ve. that the end points lo and uo of the time window wo have to be
Vehicle related: within the availability period of the distribution location.
v2V index of a vehicle, where V is the set of all We differentiate between three types of transportation. The
vehicles first type consists of transportations that can be performed
Cv capacity of vehicle v, i.e., maximum available using own local vehicles at the main manufacturing location.
volume The second type is formed by deliveries that take place using
otv maximum operating time per day own far-away vehicles at an intermediate distribution center.
hdv home depot of vehicle v Vehicles of a different manufacturer at its distribution locations
r total distance traveled by vehicle v at day can be used to deliver orders of the specific manufacturer in the
dv
r 6 rmax cooperative scenario. In this situation, an express company e 2 E
^
d average traveled distance of a single vehicle at delivers the orders from the manufacturing location of a manu-
one day facturer to another distribution location. The express company
ve multiplier that models the longer transportation can also be used to directly transport orders from the main
time that is needed by an express company due to manufacturing location to the corresponding customer. This is
hidden tours of the vehicles of the express the third type. The different types of transportation in a trans-
company. portation network that consists of four distribution centers are
Order related: shown in Fig. 1.
o2O index of an order, where O is the set of all orders The delivery by an express company takes place overnight. We
co customer that orders order o assume that the delivered orders arrive in the next morning shortly
628 R. Sprenger, L. Mönch / European Journal of Operational Research 223 (2012) 626–636

Delivery with far-away vehicles

Intermediate Customer Customer Intermediate
Distribution Distribution
Center Center
(Manufacturer 1) Customer Customer (Manufacturer 2)

Customer Delivery between

distribution centers
with express
Delivery with local vehicles company
Direct delivery Customer Customer
with express
company Customer

Manufacturer Customer Customer Manufacturer

1 2
Delivery between distribution
centers with express company
(cooperative scenario)

Fig. 1. Different types of transportation in a transportation network.

before the corresponding distribution location opens. Note that di- operations, and with respect to simulation based performance assess-
rect deliveries start also in the evening after the distribution loca- ment of transportation planning schemes.
tion has closed and have a duration of ve d. If the arrival time is not Cooperative transportation planning problems are rarely dis-
within the opening times of the distribution location, the delivery cussed in the literature. Shang and Cuff (1996) suggest a cooperative
will be postponed to the beginning of the next opening period. The strategy to solve a multi-criteria pickup and delivery problem that al-
ðiÞ
quantities ce are express company dependent. We assume that an lows for transferring hospital documents between different vehicles.
order can only be transported with an express company if it has A second example is described in Lin (2008). Here, a multi vehicle
not been already on a vehicle of one of the manufacturers or on pickup and delivery problem with a single depot is discussed. The
a vehicle of an express company. vehicles cooperate by meeting at some locations on their routes
For assessing the total costs over a certain horizon, we have to and put the already picked up orders onto a vehicle that has com-
take into account the total distance traveled by the vehicles, the pleted its route and travels back to its home depot. But the problem
costs for the express companies, and the costs caused by the viola- researched in this paper is quite different from the problem described
P
tion of time windows of the orders. We set t :¼ o2O to to normal- there in various aspects. We have to deal with multiple depots and
ize the individual lateness values of the orders. The total volume is also with different outsourcing options. Collaborative logistics prob-
P
also normalized by q ~ :¼ o2O qo . The total cost function for a hori- lems in a less than truckload transportation scenario are presented by
max
zon of r days is then given by the expression: Dai and Chen (2009). But again, the researched problem in this paper
! includes much more restrictions and is different.
X X r Xn
r max 
ð1Þr ð1Þr
 
ð2Þr ð2Þr
o
cos t : ¼ dv þ x1 cð1Þ d ;q = ~
q þ x c
2 e
ð2Þ
d ;q = ~
q Outsourcing options within transportation are discussed, for
e e e e e
r¼1 v 2V e2E example, by Lee et al. (2003) and by Zäpfel and Bögl (2008).
X pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
þ x3 ^ t =t;
d o ð1Þ Pankratz (2004) studies a pickup and delivery problem with out-
o2O sourcing options using a genetic algorithm to solve this problem.
Extensions of VRP by different types of sub-contractions are dis-
where xi > 0 are weights expressing the importance of the different
cussed by Kopfer and Wang (2009). However, our problem is dif-
cost types. We use cost functions of the form
ferent from the problems researched in these papers.
pffiffiffi
cðiÞ
e ðd; qÞ :¼ qd; ð2Þ Next, we discuss different metaheuristic approaches. Metaheu-
ristics are popular for VRPs (cf. Bräysy and Gendreau, 2005a,b;
i.e., the costs are linear in the traveled distance for a given transpor- Pankratz, 2005; Irnich, 2008; Paraskevopoulos et al., 2008). In our
tation volume, but for a given traveled distance the increase of the case, because of the large number of constraints, it makes sense
cost shows a square root behavior. Note that transportation costs to try to improve a simple construction heuristic instead of defining
of this form are often assumed (cf. Altiparmak and Karaoglan, sophisticated neighborhood structures. Therefore, we look for ACO
2008). We are interested in minimizing total costs. The last term type approaches. ACO is a nature inspired approach that is able to
in cost function (1) is due to orders that violate the right end point significantly improve construction heuristics for a large class of
of the time window during carry out the transportation plans in a combinatorial optimization problems. ACO approaches are quite
rolling horizon setting. This term has to be included to take stochas- popular for solving different types of VRPs (cf. Bullnheimer et al.,
tic effects into account that occur during the execution of the deter- 1997; Gambardella et al., 1999; Montemanni et al., 2003; Tan
mined plans. These effects are modeled by discrete event simulation. et al., 2005; Doerner et al., 2006; Favaretto et al., 2007; Pellegrini
The problem researched in this paper is NP hard because it in- et al., 2007; Gajpal and Abad, 2009 amongst others). In (Lee et al.,
cludes traveling salesman type problems as special cases. There- 2010), an initial solution provided by simulated annealing is im-
fore, we have to look for efficient heuristics to tackle the problem. proved by ACO approaches for the capacitated VRP.
The suggested ACO algorithms mainly differ in the included
3. Related research heuristic information that is typically problem specific. Among
the ACO type heuristics, ACS often leads quickly to high-quality
In this section, we discuss related literature mainly with respect to solutions (cf. Gajpal and Abad, 2009). This feature is important
cooperative transportation planning, outsourcing of transportation when the solution of real-world problems is addressed.
 R. Sprenger, L. Mönch / European Journal of Operational Research 223 (2012) 626–636
It is often beneficial to combine decomposition approaches with
ACO type solution approaches. For example, Bouhafs et al. (2006)
decompose the capacitated-location routing problem into sub
problems using simulated annealing and then use ACO to solve each
of the sub problems individually. A decomposition approach cou-
pled with ACO along with some preliminary computational results
is discussed by the present authors in (Sprenger and Mönch, 2009).
However, in this paper we suggest several modifications of this ap-
proach and provide results of extensive simulation experiments.
We have to embed the transportation planning approaches into
a rolling horizon setting because of the consideration of a real-
world scenario. Therefore, we have to solve a sequence of smaller
transportation planning problems. Feedback from the logistics
base system can be taken into account for the construction of these
transportation planning problems. Discrete event simulation can
be used to represent the logistics system. The approach of simula-
tion-based performance assessment of transportation planning ap-
proaches is rarely discussed in literature. We refer to Ebben et al.
(2004) where simulation is applied to assess the performance of
transportation planning approaches. However, there is no clear
separation between the transportation planning approaches and
the simulation engine. Simroth and Baumbach (2007) suggest a
conceptual framework to assess the performance of approaches
for dynamic transportation planning problems. However, no con-
crete implementation strategies for a simulation environment are
described. In this paper, we apply the simulation framework sug-
gested by the present authors (cf. Sprenger and Mönch, 2008) to
assess the performance of our solution schemes in a dynamic
and stochastic environment using a rolling horizon setting.
4. Cooperative transportation planning approach
In this section, we start by presenting a methodology to solve
large-scaled cooperative transportation planning problems. We
discuss a decomposition heuristic that results in a set of rich VRP
problems. We continue with discussing a simple greedy heuristic
to solve the sub problems. Finally, we present an ACS type heuristic
that improves the greedy heuristic.
4.1. Overall methodology for large-scale cooperative transportation
problems
Our methodological approach consists of the following two
solution steps and a third performance assessment step:
1. Decomposition of the overall transportation planning problem
into rich VRP sub problems that are related to the different
delivery locations taking the transportation alternatives for
the cooperative setting into account.
2. Improvement of the solution obtained in Step 1 by applying a
local search approach to the solution for the overall approach.
3. Usage of discrete event simulation to allow for the performance
assessment of different operational strategies when the
approach proposed in Steps 1 and 2 is executed in a rolling hori-
zon setting.
Next, we have to motivate and justify the three steps. A large
number of orders, i.e., some hundred or even one thousand, have
to be transported every day in the transportation network found
in the real-world scenario. Because of the NP hardness of the re-
searched problem, we apply a decomposition approach by dividing
the transportation network into different zones in the first step. The
decomposition approach allows us to compute feasible solutions of
the overall approach using a relatively short amount of time. This
behavior is because of the reduced size for each sub problem.
629
Therefore, the search space for heuristics is smaller. The relatively
short resultant computing time is an advantage when replanning
is often required in a real-world setting to deal with disturbances.
Decomposition-based heuristics are popular for multi-depot type
VRPs (cf. Lian and Castelain, 2010). After the decomposition, a rich
VRP is associated with each zone. In addition, this approach allows
for using zone-specific algorithms in a decentralized manner.
The second step is desirable because the assignment decisions
taken in Step 2 may lead to high costs for transportation with ex-
press companies. These assignments can be corrected by the local
search approach.
The algorithms used in Steps 1 and 2 are based on deterministic
data, i.e., the traveling times and the number of available vehicles
are deterministic. However, because of traffic jams or vehicle
breakdowns the planning results are executed in a dynamic and
stochastic environment. Consequently, a rolling horizon approach
is required that takes appropriate feedback from the base system
and base process into account. We apply discrete event simulation
to represent the dynamic and stochastic base system and base pro-
cess. This allows us especially to test different operational strate-
gies for a longer time horizon. Because there is an overlap of
orders across the different periods, static problem instances do
not have the potential to allow for similar insights. Therefore, Step
3 of the proposed methodology is highly desirable.
4.2. Decomposition heuristic and route construction
After all orders have been arrived in the evening and no further
traveling of vehicles takes place, we assign each order that is at a
manufacturer location and that has not already been transported
to its nearest distribution location and determine inter zone trans-
portation plans for transporting the orders to the corresponding
distribution location. The nearest distribution location is deter-
mined with respect to the location of the customer who is assigned
to the order.
We assume that this inter zone transportation plan can be exe-
cuted and each order will be transported to their nearest distribu-
tion location overnight by an express company when the order is
currently not at this location. As a consequence, each order is at
its nearest distribution location at the beginning of the next
morning.
A VRP is solved for each zone using the orders and the vehicles
that are assumed to be available at the next morning. Some orders
eventually cannot be included into the plan because the utilization
of the zone is too large or because of the violation of the end points
of their time windows. Then these orders are removed from the in-
ter zone transportation plan.
The updated inter zone transportation plans are executed. The
orders that are not part of the inter zone transportation plans be-
cause of the violation of some constraints wait for another day
when this is possible or have to send directly to their customers
by an express company.
When the distribution locations open in the morning, we solve
the corresponding VRP for each distribution location again and
execute the corresponding transportation plans using the vehicles
in the zones. This step is necessary to take the stochastic behavior
of the logistics base system like the breakdowns of some vehicle,
new orders that are arrived in the morning, or the lateness of inter
zone transports appropriately into account.
A VRP has to be solved for the orders in each distribution loca-
tion as a result of the decomposition step. Note that the resultant
sub problems still are NP hard because they include traveling sales-
man type problems as special cases. Orders are assigned to vehicles
and then a route is computed for each vehicle to deliver these or-
ders to the customers. While computing a solution for the VRP,
the maximum traveling time, the capacity of the vehicles, and the
630 R. Sprenger, L. Mönch / European Journal of Operational Research 223 (2012) 626–636

opening times of the distribution location have to be taken into ac- The order o with the largest value for the index (3) is selected
count. A tour is called a feasible assignment of orders to a vehicle next.
and the selection of a route for the vehicle to travel to the corre- Only the traveled distance and the number of orders that are
sponding customers. A tour plan TP consists of the set of tours T that not part of the tour plan are important for evaluating the costs at
are formed to deliver the orders to customers. We use the notation this point. Orders that are not part of the tour plan are directly
OT :¼ {ojo 2 T} for the set of all orders of a single tour T. transported by an expensive express transport to the correspond-
A seed vehicle has to be selected to find a first order for an ing customer. These orders cause the largest costs. The traveled
empty route for an available vehicle. Here, we choose the vehicle distance is only secondary. Therefore, we determine the costs asso-
with the earliest availability time as seed vehicle. Ties are broken ciated with the tour plan tp by
randomly. In the next step, orders are selected from the set X of
feasible orders based on the index described in Subsection 4.3, cos ttp :¼ dtp þ 1ðjototal j  jotp jÞ; ð4Þ
and they are iteratively assigned to the vehicle. An order is in X
where dtp is the traveled distance according to the tour plan, jototalj
if the constraints with respect to capacity, maximum traveling
is the total number of orders that have to be delivered, jotpj is the
time of the vehicle, and the right end point of the time window
number of orders that are scheduled to be delivered by tp, and final-
are not violated when this order is scheduled next within the route
ly 1 = 1000 kilometers is a penalty term. Each order that will not be
for the current period. The waiting time of an order at a customer
delivered by a vehicle is penalized by 1000 kilometers. Conse-
location has to be added to the traveling time of the vehicle when
quently, a tour plan with one more delivered order results in lower
the left end point of the time window is violated, i.e., when the or-
costs than a tour plan that does not include this order but has a low-
der is too early at the customer location. Note that we obtain a tour
er traveled distance.
plan and a set of orders that are directly sent to customers by an
Note that index (3) is influenced by the Apparent Tardiness Cost
express company as a result for each zone.
(ATC) dispatching rule from manufacturing. It is well-known that
The sequence in which the orders are inserted into the route
ATC type rules lead to schedules with high on-time delivery perfor-
determines the sequence in which the customers are visited by
mance (cf. Pinedo, 2008). Similar greedy look-ahead heuristics are
the vehicle. If X = £, then the current vehicle returns to its home
proposed by Atkinson (1994) and by Ioannou et al. (2001). The
depot and its availability time is updated appropriately. A new
notation GH is used as an abbreviation for the greedy heuristic in
route is started for the next available vehicle unless there are no
the remainder of this paper.
more unrouted orders left.
We continue by proposing two heuristics to deal with the sub
4.4. ACO type approaches for the sub problems
problems. These heuristics are clearly influenced by standard tech-
niques to solve rich VRP. However, existing techniques cannot be
The main idea of ACS consists in a set of artificial ants that con-
used directly because of the possibility to transport orders with ex-
struct solutions to a VRP. Each single ant starts by an empty route
press companies. The first heuristic is a simple greedy heuristic
and constructs routes according to the description in Section 4.2.
that includes a specific look-ahead index that allows for combing
The search for high-quality solutions of a VRP is coupled between
the least distance heuristic and a slack-based heuristic to deal with
the different ants by artificial pheromone trails. The ants indirectly
the time windows. By selecting an appropriate problem instance-
communicate by modifying the pheromone trails after the con-
based scaling parameter, the influence of the two parts can be
struction of a new solution. The solutions found by the ants can
changed. The second heuristic is a standard ACO approach, how-
be improved by local search techniques. The overall scheme of an
ever, its heuristic information is based on the look-ahead index
ACS type algorithm consists of the following steps (cf. Dorigo and
used in the greedy heuristic (cf. Subsection 4.3 for details) and
Socha, 2007):
the embedded local search heuristic exploits the possible transpor-
tation by express companies. Note that we do not aim to propose a
1. Set parameters and initialize pheromone trails.
new algorithm for a rich VRP, but we are interested in combining
2. Construct new solutions of the VRP by creating new ants. The
and extending existing approaches.
ants take pheromone trail information into account during their
construction of a solution.
4.3. Greedy heuristic for the sub problems
3. Improve the solutions found in Step 2 by local search.
4. Update pheromone trails using the solutions obtained by the
We describe how we select the next order o from X. Orders are
ants from Steps 2 and 3.
inserted into the route taking the distance from the location of the
5. When the termination criterion is reached then stop, otherwise
previously inserted order i to the destination of co and the time
go to Step 2 and start a new iteration.
slack between uo and the arrival time of o at its destination into ac-
count. The following index is used to select the next order o:
In the remainder of this section, we describe Steps 2 and 4 in
1  more detail. Note that Steps 2–4 forms a single iteration of ACS.
Iio ðtÞ :¼ e maxðuo tio t;0Þ=jt ; ð3Þ
maxðt io ; lo  tÞ Several ants are created within a single iteration. We denote by
gio the heuristic desirability to deliver order o immediately after
where we introduce the following notation:
order i. The gio values are typically derived by using appropriate
problem specific construction heuristics. In our experiments, we
tio time to travel from the customer of order i or from the
use the index (3) to provide the heuristic information within the
distribution location when o is the first order on the route
ACS approach. We denote by sio(t) the pheromone intensity that
to the customer of order o,
is associated with the selection of order o immediately after order
t current time,
i. The parameter t is used to denote the current iteration of the ACS
t average time to travel from one customer to its
scheme.
consecutive customer,
We continue with describing a single iteration of the ACS
j scaling parameter,
scheme. We assume that order i is the last selected order and we
lo earliest delivery time.
want to choose the successor order o. We create a sample of a
 R. Sprenger, L. Mönch / European Journal of Operational Research 223 (2012) 626–636
U[0,1] distributed random variable and denote the obtained value
~. When q
by q ~ 6 q then the order o 2 X is selected that maximizes
the value of siogio. Note that in contrast to the literature, a more
general expression of the form skio gcio with k > 0 and c > 0 is not
necessary for the researched problem. Here, q 2 (0,1) is a given
parameter of the ACS scheme. When q ~ > q then order o 2 X is se-
lected according to the following discrete distribution with the
probabilities pio given by
( to deposit additional pheromone. In our experiments, a mixed strat-
Psio gio ; if o 2 X
s g
pio :¼ h2X ih ih : ð5Þ
0; otherwise
A local update of the pheromone intensities is performed by the
expression
sio :¼ ð1  qÞsio þ qs0 ;
when a new order o is inserted into a route. Here, the quantity s0 is
the initial pheromone value. Furthermore, the quantity q 2 (0,1] is a
parameter of the ACS scheme that influences the balance between
exploration and evaporation.
When all ants have computed a tour plan within a single itera-
tion, a local search procedure can be applied to improve the solu-
tion obtained by one or more ants. We use the following two-phase
local search scheme:
Step 1: Determine the costs for inserting each single order that is
assigned to an express company at each possible position
of the tour plan. An insertion that leads to an infeasible
tour plan is not carried out. Insert the order at the position
that leads to the largest improvements of the tour plan
with respect to cost function (4).
Step 2: Calculate the costs of moving each single order from its
current to an alternative position in the same tour as well
as in the other tours. An alternative position is chosen
based on the following two neighborhood structures for
each tour T and a given positive integer n:
 MoveDist(o,n,T): It consists of the min (n,jOTj) orders for
each tour T where the locations of the customers of
these orders have the smallest distance to the location
of the customer of o among all orders OT.
 MoveTime(o,n,T): It consists of the min (n,jOTj) orders
where the difference between delivery dates jso  so~ j
is the smallest among all orders o ~ 2 OT with o – o~.
Only feasible insertions are considered. Move the order
to the position that leads to the largest improvement of
the tour plan.
Step 3: Steps 1 and 2 are repeated until they do not lead to
improvements of the tour plan or a prescribed maximum
number of iterations imax is reached.
The computational effort of the two-phase local search ap-
proach can be estimated by O(jOjnjTPjimax), where we denote by
jTPj the number of tours included in TP. Because the number of
tours is usually a multiple of the number of vehicles, we approxi-
mately obtain an O(nimaxjOjjVj) effort. The proposed local search
heuristic is faster and leads to smaller costs for the problem re-
searched in this paper than k-opt type moves (see Subsection
4.5). Especially the insertion of orders that are currently not part
of the tour plan leads to improved results if the number of avail-
able vehicles is limited. However, the local search procedure is
time-consuming compared to computing a solution by a single
ant. Therefore, we apply this local search scheme only for the iter-
ation-best ant to reduce the computational burden.
After the local search step, a global update of the pheromone
values is performed. We apply the update equation
631
8 
< ð1  aÞsio ðtÞ þ a=cost ; if o is chosen directly after i
>
sio ðt þ 1Þ :¼ in the global  best solution :
>
:
ð1  aÞsio ðtÞ; otherwise
ð7Þ
The quantity a 2 (0,1] is a parameter of the ACS scheme. Here, cost⁄
denotes the cost associated with the global-best solution found so
far by an ant. Alternatively, it is allowed for the iteration-best ant
egy is applied by using the iteration-best ant for global update after
five consecutive iterations.
4.5. Parameter setting for GH and ACS and preliminary computational
results
ð6Þ
We start with describing how we select the various parameters
in GH and ACS. The j value in index (3) is selected by a grid search
approach, i.e., we determine tour plans using GH for all
j = 1, . . . , 100 and then choose the tour plan with the smallest cost.
We use the value of the scaling parameter j that we obtain from
GH for the heuristic desirability gio. Furthermore, we choose the
parameter settings a = 0.1, q = 0.9, and q = 0.95 in our ACS ap-
proach based on computational experiments on a small number
of problem instances in combination with a trial and error strategy.
Finally, we initialize the pheromone intensities sio by choosing the
reciprocal value of the costs obtained by GH. We use 50 ants for a
single iteration.
We perform some preliminary computational experiments to
assess the performance of ACS using single depot problem in-
stances. It turns out that ACS outperforms GH by 26% on average
in terms of the traveled distance. The proposed two-phase local
search scheme clearly outperforms the 3-opt-based local search
strategy. Furthermore, ACS is assessed using the Solomon bench-
mark instances (cf. Solomon, 1987). It turns out that the traveled
distance by ACS is on average 4.5% higher and needs 0.5 more vehi-
cles on average as the best known solution after a computing time
of 15 minutes. Because of the relative small computing time used
by ACS and the relatively small difference to the best known solu-
tions for the Solomon instances we conclude that our ACS scheme
performs well. The Solomon instances are considered to get an
impression of the performance of our heuristics.
Note that the proposed decomposition heuristic is appropriate
for the described problem because the distance between most of
the distribution locations is large (see the description of the scenar-
ios in Subsection 5.2). Therefore, an assignment to the nearest zone
is reasonable for most of the orders and Step 2 of the overall ap-
proach described in Subsection 4.1 can be avoided for the situation
that is given by our problem data. An exchange of orders across
zones does not improve the solution in many situations. We used
the local search heuristic described in Subsection 4.4 for improving
the entire solution obtained by the decomposition approach and
ACS for the researched transportation problem. However, it turned
out that the objective value calculated based on expression (1) can
be improved in this way by only 1–3% compared to the solution
without additional improvement phase using 50% more computa-
tion time. In addition, a more sophisticated decomposition heuristic
is assessed. In contrast to the previous decomposition strategy, or-
ders are not assigned to their nearest delivery location if the corre-
sponding customer is nearby the zone of the manufacturing
location that belongs to the order. Consequently, this decomposi-
tion heuristic has the potential to avoid transportations across dif-
ferent zones. As a result of some computational experimentation,
we found that a few transportations across zones are eliminated,
but we did not observe that a full transport across different zones
is saved in any situation. Therefore, according to the form of the cost
632 R. Sprenger, L. Mönch / European Journal of Operational Research 223 (2012) 626–636

function (2) the cost savings are small and the additional travel Intermediate Distribution Center
time of own vehicles and the costs caused by late orders exceed
these savings.
Manufacturer
5. Simulation-based performance assessment of the heuristics

In this section, we assess the performance of ACS in a rolling

horizon setting. Therefore, we describe an appropriate simulation
framework in Subsection 5.1. The design of experiments used is Hamburg
presented in Subsection 5.2. The results of simulation experiments
are shown and discussed in Subsection 5.3.

Berlin
5.1. Framework for experimentation

A simulation framework is developed to assess the performance

of the algorithms for the researched problem in a dynamic and sto-
chastic environment. This corresponds to Step 3 of the proposed
methodology presented in Subsection 4.1. Note that our algorithms Cologne Frankfurt
are based on deterministic input data. We apply the proposed heu- Customer
ristics in a rolling horizon setting. Stochastic events like traffic jams
or breakdowns of vehicles might occur that influence the perfor-
mance of the tour plans when they are executed. When the num-
ber of orders is large compared to the number of available vehicles
and the time windows are tight, an efficient heuristic leads often to
Munich
tour plans where the delivery dates of the orders are near to the
right end point of the time window. This can lead to a significant
deterioration in performance of high-quality solutions when they
are executed in a stochastic environment.
The simulation framework consists of the simulation engine
AutoSched AP 9 for modeling the transportation network and the
vehicles and a blackboard-type data layer between tour planning 600km
component and simulator (cf. Sprenger and Mönch, 2008). The data
Fig. 2. Logistics network in Germany.
layer stores current status related information about the transpor-
tation network, like locations and distances between the locations,
the set of vehicles, and the orders in the memory of the computer.
In our scenarios, two manufacturers produce food. In addition,
The transportation network and the transportation process itself
there are three intermediate distribution centers. Each manufac-
are emulated by the simulation model and the simulation engine.
turer owns vehicles at its distribution centers. The transportation
The simulation framework takes the following stochastic behavior
network is shown in Fig. 2.
of the transportation network and process into account:
The different number of vehicles per location that is assumed in
the scenarios is summarized in Table 1. Totally, we consider 20
 Vehicles might break down randomly for an entire day. The cur-
vehicles.
rent status of all vehicles is known at the beginning of each day.
We generate problem instances according to the following
 The traveling, loading, and unloading times are stochastic rather
description. Each single problem instance is described by a set of
than deterministic as assumed by the planning heuristics.
orders with corresponding attributes and by a set of vehicles. Note
that we have to specify the arrival pattern of the orders over time.
The transportation network and process treat the consequences
We start by describing the order generation scheme.
of the described uncertainty as follows:
The ready date ro of an order o is set according to the expression

 The vehicles travel back to their home depot when there is a
danger that their maximum daily operating time will be vio-
lated or the return time of the vehicles will be outside the daily
opening hours of the home depot. Orders that are not served to
customers due to these earlier returns will be unloaded at the
delivery location.
 When the arrival time of the vehicle is smaller than lo, then the
vehicles have to wait until the beginning of the time window
before servicing the customer.
r0  U½24k; 10a þ 24k; k 2 IN; ð8Þ
where we denote by a 2 (0,1] a parameter that controls how early
in the morning the transportation orders are ready for transporta-
tion. Incoming orders are concentrated in the morning. In our
experiments, we simply set a = 0.5. Because we run the simulation
for 120 days, we use k = 0, . . . , 119 in expression (8).
The earliest delivery date lo and the latest possible delivery date
uo are chosen in a similar way. We obtain for order o:

lo  ro  U½dt min þ dmo co ; dt max  tsmin ; ð9Þ

5.2. Design of experiments
In our simulation experimentation, we consider scenarios that
are based on a real-world data set obtained from food manufactur-
ers in Germany. Note that in contrast to the standard problems of
the transportation planning domain (cf. Toth and Vigo, 2002)
benchmark problem instances are not available in the literature.
and
uo  r o  tsmin  U½l0  ro ; dt max  tsmin ; ð10Þ
where we denote by dtmin and dtmax the minimum and maximum
time relative to the order release date when a delivery has to take
place. We denote by dmo co the time to travel between the distribution
 R. Sprenger, L. Mönch / European Journal of Operational Research 223 (2012) 626–636
Table 1
Number of vehicles at the different locations.
Location
Manufacturer 1 (Frankfurt)
Manufacturer 2 (Hamburg)
Intermediate distribution center 1 (Cologne)
Intermediate distribution center 2 (Berlin)
Intermediate distribution center 3 (Munich)
location and the location of the customer of order o. A minimum
length of the time window is given by tsmin. We use tsmin = 2 hours
and dtmin = 24 hours. Notice that because of expression (9) and
(10) the inequality
uo  lo P tsmin ;
is valid. We consider only orders that have a unit volume.
We continue with the description of the non-order related part
of the generation scheme. The maximum daily operating time otv
of the vehicles is set to 10 hours. We assume the all the distribu-
tion locations are open between 8 am and 6 pm, i.e., 10 hours per
day. The loading time of orders consists of a fixed part that takes
10 minutes and an additional variable part that is one minute per
order. The corresponding unloading times of orders are five min-
utes as fixed component and one additional minute per order.
The traveling time multiplier for direct transportation ve is set to 4.
In order to mimic the stochastic behavior of the transportation
network and process we consider random instances of the travel-
ing time of the vehicles including loading and unloading, the daily
number of arriving orders j Oj,b and the number of non-available
vehicles per day j Vb j. Furthermore, we study the cooperative and
the non-cooperative case. The used design of experiments is shown
in Table 2.
Totally, we have to consider 32 scenarios for the cooperative
and 32 scenarios for the non-cooperative transportation planning
approach, respectively. Note that in case of d = 0.1 and p = 0.1 the
tour planes are based on values for the traveling times and the
number of available vehicles that are different from those that
are used during the execution of the tour planes. In contrast,
c = 0.2 leads to orders that are taken into account during the deter-
mination of the tour plans.
The simulation is performed for 120 days per scenario where
the first ten days are ignored due to a warm-up phase. We take
all orders o into account where ro is between day 10 and 110 for
gathering the statistics for the performance measures. We are
interested in the percentage of late orders, the traveled distance
of own vehicles, and the traveled distance and transported volume
of express company transports according to cost function (1). We
set x1 = 15 and x2 = 250 in expression (1) to model that the sec-
ond and third type of transportation is much more expensive than
the first type. Furthermore, we use x3 = 1. Because of the rolling
horizon approach, we have to run the transportation planning ap-
Table 2
Design of experiments.
Factor
Transportation planning approach
Traveling time of the vehicles including loading and unloading time
Daily number of arriving orders
Deterministic daily number of arriving orders
Daily number of non-available vehicles
Maximum time relative to the order release date where a delivery has to
take place
Total number of combinations
633
Manufacturer 1 Manufacturer 2
5 /
/ 3
2 2
2 2
2 2
proach in the morning and in the evening of each day. A maximum
time of five minutes is allowed to solve the corresponding trans-
portation planning problem. One minute out of the five minutes
is spent to obtain a initial solution using GH. GH terminates after
one minute or when the grid search for appropriate j values is
ð11Þ completed within a smaller period of time. Due to the longer deliv-
ery horizon it turns out that the best j is between 0 and 1000. As a
consequence, we set j = 1, . . . , 1000. The remaining four minutes
are used to run ACS including the two-phase local search heuristic
with n = imax = 3. Note that usually small values of j lead to high-
quality solutions. All simulations runs are performed on a 2 Giga-
hertz Intel Core Duo computer using one core and 1.5 Gigabyte
of its RAM. We use three independent replications for each simula-
tion run and take average values for the performance measures.
5.3. Results of computational experiments
An overview about the results can be found in Table 3. Instead
of comparing all scenarios individually, the scenarios are grouped
according to factor levels such as daily number of arriving orders,
daily number of non-available vehicles, etc. For example, c = 0.2
implies that all other factors have been varied, but the noise in
the daily arriving number of orders has been kept constant at
c = 0.2. For a particular factor in Table 3 the value provided is the
average value of the performance measure for three independent
runs.
The cooperative scenario turns out to be more beneficial. The
number of orders where the delivery time violates the right end
point of the time window is between 1% and 3%, whereas up to
7% of the orders are too late in the non-cooperative scenario. In
addition, the own vehicles have to travel around 20% more and
the vehicles for direct express transports 100% more. This results
in additional costs and demonstrates the benefits for the manufac-
turers if they cooperate and share their distribution fleets.
The longer time period for delivery, i.e., dtmax = 72 hour, saves
about 25% of direct transportation kilometers paying the price of
10% more traveled kilometers by own vehicles. Due to the main
goal of saving expensive direct transports, the increasing number
of transports by own vehicles is acceptable and leads to lower
costs.
The number of direct transportation kilometers increases
quickly if the number of vehicles is not sufficient. This can be seen
Level Count
Cooperative vs. non-cooperative 2
^  U½ð1  dÞd; ð1 þ dÞd with d 2 {0.0,0.1} and d is the deterministic traveling time
d 2
b  U½ð1  cÞj Oj;
j Oj e ð1 þ cÞj Oj
e with c 2 {0.0,0.2} and j Oje is the deterministic 2
number of orders
e ¼ 100 and j Oj
j Oj e ¼ 200, equally distributed over the two manufacturer 2
jVb j  U½0; pjVj where p 2 {0.0,0.1} 2
dtmax 2 {48 hours, 72 hour} 2
64
634 R. Sprenger, L. Mönch / European Journal of Operational Research 223 (2012) 626–636

Table 3
Computational results for different factor settings.

Compare Factor Traveled distance of own Traveled distance of the Percentage of Cost per
vehicles in km express companies in km late orders (%) order
(direct transport)
Cooperative dtmax = 48 627,953 712,109 2.57 164.75
dtmax = 72 657,737 421,307 1.55 121.31
c = 0.0 649,983 581,776 2.08 142.90
c = 0.2 635,707 551,640 2.04 143.17
b ¼ 100
j Oj 549,996 173,032 0.96 121.58
b ¼ 200
j Oj 735,694 960,384 3.17 164.48
d = 0.0 642,938 554,501 2.02 141.52
d = 0.1 642,751 578,914 2.10 144.54
p = 0.0 661,757 549,352 2.17 142.81
p = 0.1 623,933 584,063 1.96 143.25
Non-cooperative dtmax = 48 871,965 1,529,501 5.61 354.33
dtmax = 72 960,031 1,187,711 5.03 312.86
c = 0.0 919,087 1,356,443 5.21 329.99
c = 0.2 912,909 1,360,768 5.43 337.20
b ¼ 100
j Oj 810,112 597,531 3.98 316.68
b ¼ 200
j Oj 958,012 1,985,930 6.21 326.51
d = 0.0 918,909 1,362,669 5.47 337.60
d = 0.1 913,088 1,354,543 5.17 329.59
p = 0.0 949,443 1,153,271 3.80 280.46
p = 0.1 882,553 1,563,941 6.84 386.73

by increasing the number of orders per day from 100 to 200. As a
consequence, it is beneficial to run a sufficient number of own
vehicles at the distribution locations. In addition, it turns out that
the number of necessary vehicles is lower in the cooperative
scenario.
The number of orders that violate the right end point of the time
window increases if vehicle breakdowns are considered. Increased
costs of about 20% are the result in the non-cooperative scenario.
Deviations in the traveling time between locations have only a sig-
nificant effect if the number of orders is considerably large with re-
spect the number of available vehicles.
Note that there is a difference between the cooperative and the
non-cooperative scenarios concerning the traveled distance of ex-
press companies between distribution locations. This difference
is not explicitly shown in Table 3. Due to two additional delivery
links in the cooperative scenarios, the traveled distance of the ex-
press companies increase from around 258,000 to 365,000 kilome-
ters. This information is not shown in Table 3, because there is only
a difference between the cooperative and the non-cooperative sce-
narios, but not among the scenarios in the cooperative and the
non-cooperative case itself. However, this information is implicitly
contained in the average cost per order. This value is calculated
based on expression (1).
In Table 4, we compare purely deterministic scenarios and sce-
narios where stochastic events happen. The traveled distance of
the express companies increase for direct transports, and more or-
ders are late in the stochastic setting. The traveled distance of di-
rect transports increase by 20–30% especially in scenarios with a
b ¼ 100. This is another justification
small number of orders, i.e., j Oj
for the need to carry out a simulation-based performance assess-
ment of the algorithms in a rolling horizon setting, i.e. for Step 3
of our overall methodology. Moreover, we see from the results that
the impact of the stochastic base system is larger in the non-coop-
erative setting.
Next, we are interested in assessing the performance in a sce-
nario where the heuristics can react faster to newly arrived orders

Table 4
Computational results for the deterministic and the stochastic setting.

Deterministic vs. b
j Oj dtmax Traveled distance for Traveled distance of the Percentage of Cost per
stochastic own vehicles in km express companies in km late orders (%) order
(direct transport)
Cooperative Stochastic 100 48 523,604 256,327 1.32 145.12
100 72 542,947 129,315 0.88 111.21
200 48 695,157 1,159,094 3.07 175.68
200 72 730,882 801,772 2.45 140.76
Average 623,147 586,627 1.93 143.19
Deterministic 100 48 558,515 222,868 1.09 134.27
100 72 573,669 98,020 0.78 101.49
200 48 750,475 1,153,354 3.60 182.93
200 72 794,889 683,990 2.21 131.58
Average 669,387 539,558 1.92 137.57
Non-cooperative Stochastic 100 48 744,133 816,243 5.28 385.29
100 72 831,332 577,630 5.00 344.00
200 48 916,692 2,620,213 8.15 408.15
200 72 1,006,016 2,166,710 7.84 380.60
Average 874,543 1,545,199 6.57 379.51
Deterministic 100 48 800,027 604,873 2.97 291.11
100 72 865,898 378,133 2.71 246.38
200 48 1,019,180 1,978,039 4.39 293.35
200 72 1,131,542 1,620,587 4.71 279.18
Average 954,162 1,145,408 3.69 277.51
 R. Sprenger, L. Mönch / European Journal of Operational Research 223 (2012) 626–636 635

Table 5
Computational results for tight time windows and different planning frequencies.

Compare Traveled distance of Traveled distance of the Percentage of Cost per

own vehicles in km express companies in km late orders (%) order
(direct transport)
Two calculations Cooperative Deterministic twmax = 24 hour 728,506 644,030 3.53 184.67
twmax = 3 hour 731,587 675,763 3.84 190.19
Stochastic twmax = 24 hour 655,605 795,322 4.43 208.61
twmax = 3 hour 663,837 842,000 4.78 217.20
Non-cooperative Deterministic twmax = 24 hour 961,185 1,627,235 8.06 424.46
twmax = 3 hour 950,787 1,761,885 9.54 449.40
Stochastic twmax = 24 hour 864,137 1,982,579 10.83 492.23
twmax = 3 hour 855,861 2,091,172 12.44 524.26
Three calculations Cooperative Deterministic twmax = 24 hour 727,804 634,673 3.81 185.57
twmax = 3 hour 732,874 707,110 4.02 194.74
Stochastic twmax = 24 hour 667,985 767,957 4.47 208.13
twmax = 3 hour 668,756 857,721 5.06 220.88
Non-cooperative Deterministic twmax = 24 hour 971,674 1,599,180 7.73 401.58
twmax = 3 hour 962,345 1,764,835 9.02 427.96
Stochastic twmax = 24 hour 875,718 1,957,849 10.42 480.49
twmax = 3 hour 864,670 2,039,869 11.54 503.34

and stochastic events. Therefore, we compute new tour plans at
1 pm when half of the possible delivery duration of the current
day has been reached. We can compute a new tour plan for the
remaining delivery period at 1 pm, taking all orders that are avail-
able at this point of time and the estimated completion date of the
currently executed tours as possible start time for new tours into
account. We refer to this setting as scenarios with three computa-
tions, i.e., in the evening, morning, and at noon. We reduce the
maximum number of orders per vehicle from 15 to six to increase
the potential number of daily tours per vehicle. A smaller number
of orders per tour lead often to shorter tours. Consequently, a more
frequent replanning has the potential to offer some advantage in
this situation.
In addition, we choose the size of the time windows by the set-
ting dtmin = 24 hour to determine the left end points of the time
window according to expression (9). In order to set the right end
point uo, we replace expression (10) by
uo  r o  tsmin  U½l0  r o ; lo  ro þ twmax  tsmin :
Therefore, we have
tsmin 6 uo  lo 6 twmax ;
i.e., twmax is the maximum length of the time window. In the sce-
narios with tight time windows, we set tsmin = 2 hour and
twmax = 3 hour, i.e., the time windows have a length between two
and three hours. We set j Ojb ¼ 150 to avoid increasing the number
of vehicles. Because the new scenario is different from that scenario
described in Table 2, we present for comparison purposes also re-
sults for twmax = 24 hour. As a result, we are able to study the effect
of reducing the size of the time windows. The levels of the factors
that influence the stochastic behavior of the transportation network
are selected according to Table 2. The computational results of the
new scenarios are shown in Table 5. The best results in comparison
of two and three computations are bold-marked.
The results show again that the cooperative scenario outper-
forms the non-cooperative one. Time windows of reduced size lead
to increased lateness of the orders and the influence of stochastic
events is higher and results in increased travel time and larger
costs. The additional computations at the mid of the day have a po-
sitive impact in the non-cooperative setting. In the cooperative set-
ting, we observe slightly larger costs. This coincides with our
observation that the effect of a stochastic base system is much
stronger in case of the non-cooperative setting. It is clear that a
more frequent feedback from the base system leads to a better per-
formance of the executed tour plans in this situation.
6. Conclusions and future research
In this paper, we discussed a methodology for a cooperative
transportation planning problem that is motivated by a real-world
problem found in the German food industry. Because the researched
problem is NP hard, we looked for appropriate heuristics. We
decomposed the overall problem into a set of smaller rich VRPs that
are solved by ACS. ACS type heuristics are appropriate because they
are able to deal appropriately with the large number of different
constraints. We applied the proposed heuristics in a rolling horizon
setting using discrete event simulation to represent the dynamic
and stochastic logistics system. It turned out that the cooperative
strategy clearly outperforms the non-cooperative algorithms.
There are several directions for future research. The first direc-
tion is related to the decomposition scheme. So far, we used in our
experimentation a simple decomposition. However, we believe
that we can improve the performance of our heuristics when we
use a more dynamic decomposition scheme (cf. Bouhafs et al.,
ð12Þ 2006 for such a heuristic for a capacitated location routing prob-
lem) that allows for an iterative improvement of the decomposi-
tion after the resulting sub problems are solved. This is especially
ð13Þ true when many orders have a similar distance to different distri-
bution locations. Note that this situation is not covered by the
problem instances used so far. Finally, in the real-world setting,
backhauls are quite important. It seems to be interesting to con-
sider approaches that treat backhauls within a VRP in the situation
researched in this paper. However, carrying out all the necessary
details is part of future research.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the Ger-
man Federal Ministry of Economics (BMWi) within the project iCo-
Trans (Grant 19G7022A). Furthermore, they would like to thank
Can Dündar Karaduman for his valuable programming efforts.
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