| Article ID: | iaor20042204 |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Volume: | 39 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Start Page Number: | 325 |
| End Page Number: | 339 |
| Publication Date: | Jul 2003 |
| Journal: | Transportation Research. Part E, Logistics and Transportation Review |
| Authors: | Liu Jiyin, Li Chung-Lun, Chan Chun-Yan |
| Keywords: | vehicle routing & scheduling, heuristics |
This paper studies a mixed truck delivery system that allows both hub-and-spoke and direct shipment delivery modes. A heuristic algorithm is developed to determine the mode of delivery for each demand and to perform vehicle routing in both modes of deliveries. Computational experiments are carried out on a large set of randomly generated problem instances to compare the mixed system with the pure hub-and-spoke system and the pure direct shipment system. The experiment results show that the mixed system can save around 10% total traveling distance on average as compared with either of the two pure systems.