CAPACITATED TWO-STAGE TIME MINIMIZATION TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM

A capacitated two-stage time minimization transportation problem is considered in this paper, in which the total availability of a homogeneous product at various sources is more than the total requirement of the same at destinations. Unlike the conventional imbalanced time minimization transportation problem, in the current problem, transportation takes place in two stages such that the minimum requirement of the destinations is satisfied in the first stage and the surplus amount is transported in the second stage. Each time the transportation from sources to destinations is done in parallel and the capacity on each route (source destination link) remains fixed, i.e., the total amount transported in both the stages cannot exceed its upper bound. In each stage, the objective is to minimize the shipment time and the overall goal is to find a solution that minimizes the sum of first and second stage times.