Container drayage operations at intermodal terminals: a deterministic annealing approach

Abstract

This chapter deals with pre- and end-haulage by road of containers handled by an inland intermodal barge terminal. Pre- and end-haulage by road represent an operational planning problem in intermodal freight transport. The efficiency of the road leg influences the competitive position of intermodal freight transport. A deterministic annealing algorithm is proposed to find near-optimal solutions with low computational effort. The algorithm is applied both as a post-optimizer and as an independent algorithm. Parameter settings are analysed with a fractional factorial design. Experimental results demonstrate the robustness of the deterministic annealing algorithm with respect to different problem characteristics and quality of the initial solution.