Groupage transportation cost modeling

Abstract

Changes in food distribution have led to the fact that sales of products by commercial enterprises take place in a large area by small batches fulfilling individual orders. In most cases, the delivery of products to commercial enterprises is made by road. However, there are virtually no guidelines for the choice of vehicles, their configuration and quantity necessary for groupage. Therefore, it is essential to determine road transportation efficiency, which on delivery routes is characterized by the transportation costs of 1 ton of freight only. The lack of publicly available statistical indicators of automobile operational parameters significantly complicates transportation costing. At the same time, solving such tasks of planning groupage shipments as the choice of a car, its route, fleet composition, etc. requires awareness of interdependences between transportation costs and the capacity of a car. It is proposed to determine transportation costs based on a vehicle capacity by extrapolating the vehicle parameters according to the manufacturer and service companies` data, as well as an algorithm for delivery route operation modeling. Through the example of Isuzu refrigerated vehicles, the study shows that the replacement of one ride of a car with a large capacity by two rides performed by cars with a lower capacity according to the transportation cost reduction criterion is impractical. A comparison of the costs for Isuzu vehicles with similar capacity shows that there are no points of equivalent transportation costs. That is, the replacement with a larger-capacity car becomes cost-effective after the complete consignment of a lower-capacity vehicle