Planning ahead for the unknown
Planning vehicle routes for logistics providers is like forecasting the weather: Known events are compounded by unknown factors that can change the situation entirely. True, the clerk who coordinates the vehicle routes – the dispatcher – knows which parcels have to be delivered where before the trucks leave the depot. However, he does not know which pick-up orders will come in once the trucks are en route. “All day long new orders come in, existing ones are canceled or changed, but no more real planning takes place,” reports mathematician Axel Simroth of the Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVI. Although dispatchers build a safety margin into their route plans, they are moving on thin ice. If they allow too great a margin, they will waste valuable capacities. If they allow too little, they could cause delays. In a joint project with logistics experts from GTS Systems and Consulting GmbH, the IVI researchers are developing mathematical decision models and methods: A special software program creates vehicle route plans in real time, dynamically making allowance for the order situation. Additional orders received at short notice are taken into account from the outset, using optimization algorithms and an accurate mathematical analysis of empirical values: In which areas do the most jobs come in at short notice? How can the journeys be planned so as to take in these changes as efficiently as possible? And how much extra time should actually be allowed for which deliveries? If new jobs are received at short notice, the software calculates which driver can best take care of them and builds them into the schedule in a way that involves as few diversions as possible. The drivers stay constantly in touch with the logistics center via telematics modules, and are informed straight away of any changes to the plan. Even better, the planning software sees the big picture, an impossible undertaking for a human planner. A parcel service dispatcher, for example, plans the vehicle routes for up to a hundred vehicles. Each vehicle is on the road for up to ten hours a day and covers distances of up to 70 kilometers with between 100 and 120 stops in urban areas. “Right now, the dispatcher can only look at one section of the vehicle route plan. The software considers all the vehicles, drivers and routes at the same time,” Simroth affirms. “By better coordinating the vehicles, we are able to utilize them as much as 30 percent more efficiently, particularly on local routes.” The first prototype of the dynamic vehicle route planner will be tested in day-to-day operations in 2008.
Countries
Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom