Title: A study of the optimisation of commercial vehicles' distribution in multimodal transport network

Authors: Hao Zhang; Shensi Xu; Mengjiao Tang

Addresses: Business School, Beijing Technology and Business University, No. 33, Fucheng Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100048, China ' Business School, Beijing Technology and Business University, No. 33, Fucheng Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100048, China ' Business School, Beijing Technology and Business University, No. 33, Fucheng Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100048, China

Abstract: This paper focuses on the choice of the commercial vehicles' distribution centre, distribution routes and transportation mode, as well as the reliability of service. According to the nodes decision, the cluster analysis is selected as the basis of choosing the regional distribution centres. In terms of the distribution routes and methods, a distribution optimisation model is constructed inclusive of the transportation cost, transfer cost and punishment cost. And then a chaos particle swarm algorithm is effectively applied to solving the problem. Finally, the data from a vehicle logistics enterprise is analysed carefully. It proves that the arithmetic is effective and reliable when the regional distribution centres and the distribution routes are selected.

Keywords: distribution networks; multimodal transport; particle swarm optimisation; PSO; vehicle logistics; commercial vehicles; transport networks; service reliability; cluster analysis; regional distribution centres; vehicle routing; transport costs; transfer costs; punishment costs.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTM.2016.078552

International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 2016 Vol.22 No.3/4/5, pp.230 - 243

Received: 08 Jan 2016
Accepted: 04 May 2016
Published online: 22 Aug 2016 *

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