Fleet Planning

Order-vehicle distribution and route assignment

Betterways provides software solutions for the planning and management of logistics.

The input for the software solution are all the possible parameters that are going to limit the choices:

• actives (ex. like fleet-size, type of vehicles, drivers, etc)
• orders (ex. time window, size, weight, type, etc)
• traffic network (ex. distribution hours, forbidden streets, load/download spots, etc)
• traffic conditions (ex. incidents, events, congestion, etc)

Additionally there will be continuous flow of additional information composed of any changes in the initial conditions, like breakdowns, new orders or changes in the traffic conditions.

The output will be an assignment of orders to each vehicle and the best route to full fill them. Such a ‘best’ procedure means an average productivity improvement of a 15%.

Urban goods distribution, also known as Last Mile Distribution, is one of the main congestion sources, representing both a 30% of congestion’s roots and the 30% of the total transport costs. An improvement in the operation of distribution would represent a direct benefit for prices, logistics and all drivers.

There are three elements to consider for fleet planning:

1. Calculation and planning of optimum routes
2. Dynamic management of imponderables like breakdowns or last minute orders
3. Dynamic management related to traffic conditions

The fleet manager has a limited fleet of vehicles with different characteristics, a network of distribution points and a list of orders. The first task is a global procedure to calculate the optimum route for each one of those vehicles in order to attend all of those orders in the minimum time, using the minimum resources and to the clients’ full satisfaction.

Such a plan may be perfect in a static world, but we all know that fleet management requires constant follow on and quick decisions which represent a change on the initial conditions that had been used for route planning. So in order to preserve the benefit of optimum routes it is necessary a decision support system that suggests new routes and even new order-assignment for each one of the vehicles. Even if we come to enjoy no imponderables, traffic conditions will probably change. And Betterways can provide the necessary information about those traffic conditions that will make possible to manage order and routes in the same way we managed imponderables.

Other references: UPC