Universität Bremen
Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaft
Lehrstuhl für Logistik (LfL)
Wilhelm-Herbst-Str. 5,
28359
Bremen,
Germany
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B9 - Levels and limits of autonomy of collaborative vehicle routing and scheduling (new)
Prof. Dr.
Herbert
Kopfer
Motivation
Research is based on collaborative short term transport planning within a groupage system established by autonomous freight forwarders. The freight forwarders decide between self-fulfillment and subcontracting. The inclusion of the subcontracting leads to improved solutions compared to standard transport planning which is only part of the short term transport planning problem. Additional cost reduction is achieved through interchanging customer requests within the groupage system.
Collaborative transport planning of autonomous partners is a complex problem with high pertinence and directs research towards the analysis and evaluation of attributes of autonomous cooperation.
Objectives Phase 2 (2008-2011)
Potentials and strategies for cooperation within the transport sector will be investigated in this subproject. The planning problem will be solved based on combinatorial auctions. Then variations in participation rates of the autonomous entities will be analysed with regards to the impacts on autonomous control, thereby increasing knowledge on groupage systems.
The first objective is to test different models on collaboration among independent freight forwarders with dynamically varying customer orders within different scenarios. The second objective lies in finding preferable degrees of order interchange and in defining limits to this autonomous control.
Approach Phase 2 (2008-2011)
A model of collaboration among independent freight forwarding entities and methods for solving subproblems will be developed and tested. Therefore, collaborative planning is divided into its different phases and processes based on methods of combinatorial auctions and Operations Research Games. For solving the optimization problems of the individual coalition member genetic algorithms and tabu search will be used. Optimization of the overall utility function of the groupage system will be conducted by heuristic methods and by nature-analogous optimization methods. Those methods will be tested on example scenarios based on empirical data gathered in cooperation projects with companies. Further, the amount of orders interchanged will be varied in order to define good parameters for the level of autonomous control.
Results Phase 2 (2008-2011)
Through collaboration within groupage systems, transportation efficiency on the freight forwarder level can be increased considerably. It has been shown that both the total travel distances and the utilized vehicles can be reduced [Kra08b], [Kop09a]. For the routing problems of a single freight forwarder, solution approaches have been developed [Kra09]. Furthermore, legal restrictions on driving and rest periods have also been integrated into operational planning since these regulations will highly affect the routing problems. Regarding the constitution of groupage systems, internal procedures and rules have been analysed comprehensively [Blo09a]. Based on these results, a collaborative scenario has been transferred into a multiagent-based simulation environment and has been implemented on the on the software platform PlaSMA. This platform has also been developed within the SFB637 (subproject B4).
Research is based on collaborative short term transport planning within a groupage system established by autonomous freight forwarders. The freight forwarders decide between self-fulfillment and subcontracting. The inclusion of the subcontracting leads to improved solutions compared to standard transport planning which is only part of the short term transport planning problem. Additional cost reduction is achieved through interchanging customer requests within the groupage system.
Collaborative transport planning of autonomous partners is a complex problem with high pertinence and directs research towards the analysis and evaluation of attributes of autonomous cooperation.
Objectives Phase 2 (2008-2011)
Potentials and strategies for cooperation within the transport sector will be investigated in this subproject. The planning problem will be solved based on combinatorial auctions. Then variations in participation rates of the autonomous entities will be analysed with regards to the impacts on autonomous control, thereby increasing knowledge on groupage systems.
The first objective is to test different models on collaboration among independent freight forwarders with dynamically varying customer orders within different scenarios. The second objective lies in finding preferable degrees of order interchange and in defining limits to this autonomous control.
Approach Phase 2 (2008-2011)
A model of collaboration among independent freight forwarding entities and methods for solving subproblems will be developed and tested. Therefore, collaborative planning is divided into its different phases and processes based on methods of combinatorial auctions and Operations Research Games. For solving the optimization problems of the individual coalition member genetic algorithms and tabu search will be used. Optimization of the overall utility function of the groupage system will be conducted by heuristic methods and by nature-analogous optimization methods. Those methods will be tested on example scenarios based on empirical data gathered in cooperation projects with companies. Further, the amount of orders interchanged will be varied in order to define good parameters for the level of autonomous control.
Results Phase 2 (2008-2011)
Through collaboration within groupage systems, transportation efficiency on the freight forwarder level can be increased considerably. It has been shown that both the total travel distances and the utilized vehicles can be reduced [Kra08b], [Kop09a]. For the routing problems of a single freight forwarder, solution approaches have been developed [Kra09]. Furthermore, legal restrictions on driving and rest periods have also been integrated into operational planning since these regulations will highly affect the routing problems. Regarding the constitution of groupage systems, internal procedures and rules have been analysed comprehensively [Blo09a]. Based on these results, a collaborative scenario has been transferred into a multiagent-based simulation environment and has been implemented on the on the software platform PlaSMA. This platform has also been developed within the SFB637 (subproject B4).
Project Staff
