Time-dependent routing of drayage operations in the service area of intermodal terminals

Abstract

In this paper the operational planning of drayage operations in the service area of intermodal terminals is studied. Drayage operations are the full truckload and empty container transport activities between container terminals, container depots, consignees and shippers. Most existing models consider travel times to be constant over time. In reality travel times depend on the time of the day. In this paper, time-dependent travel times are considered while planning daily drayage operations. A deterministic annealing meta-heuristic is proposed to solve the problem. The algorithm provides high quality results. Finally, two approaches to reduce computation time are presented.