Multicommodity Flow Model for Multimodal Transportation Planning

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology for a more efficient way of freight transportation planning through the use of a multimodal network. The freight forwarder can use combinations of non-scheduled truck and scheduled air transportation. This problem attempts to combine the flexible-time service of truck transportation with the scheduled-time service of air transport through Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) that is formulated as a Multi-Commodity Flow Problem. This paper uses the data from an express delivery service network with multiple objective decisions, which are to minimize total transportation cost and transportation time for each commodity. The method used in the research aims to consolidate the freight commodities to minimize the overall transportation costs and to meet time constrained demands.