CARGO CONSOLIDATION AND DISTRIBUTION THROUGH A TERMINALS-NETWORK. A BRANCH-AND-PRICE APPROACH.

Abstract

Less-than-truckload (LTL) is a transport modality that includes many practical variations to convey  a number of transportation-requests from the origin locations to their destinations by using the possibility of goods-transshipments on the carrier’s terminals-network. In this way logistics companies are required to consolidate shipments from different suppliers in the outbound vehicles at a terminal of the network. We present a methodology for finding near-optimal solutions to a LTL shipping modality used for cargo consolidation and distribution through a terminals-network. The methodology uses column generation combined with an incomplete branch-and-price procedure.