Vehicle packing

The cost of transporting a set of shipments from an origin to many destinations depends on the number of vehicle loads required and the average route length per load. This paper explores a trade-off between the dual objectives of minimizing these two factors. Vehicle loads and route length per load are evaluated for a heuristic whereby more than one vehicle is filled simultaneously for the same destination. Filling more than one vehicle at the same time in general allows more shipments to be fit onto each vehicle, but increass route length per load. The best balance between loading efficiency and route length per load depends on the square-root of the size of the region over which shipments are delivered and the average distance from the origin to the destinations. To minimize total route length, the number of vehicles loaded simultaneously should increase as the ratio between these two values decreases.