In this paper, we explore trade-offs between operational flexibility and operational complexity in periodic distribution problems. We consider the gains from operational flexibility in terms of vehicle routing costs and customer service benefits, and the costs of operational complexity in terms...

Traffic data from a 4-mile long congested rural road in Orinda, California, are used to show that traffic delays and vehicle accumulations between any two generic observers located inside a road section can be predicted from the traffic counts measured at the extremes of the section. The traffic...

The arrival times of vehicles traveling southbound along a two-lane, bi-directional highway were recorded at eight neighboring locations upstream of a bottleneck caused by an oversaturated traffic signal. Cumulative curves constructed from these observations describe completely and in great...

Carriers are under increasing pressure to offset rising fuel charges with cost cutting or revenue generating schemes. One opportunity for cost reduction lies in asset management. This paper presents resource allocation scheduling models that can be used to assign truck loads to delivery times...

We develop a dynamic fleet scheduling model that demonstrates how a carrier can improve fleet utilization. The fleet scheduling model presented by Lee et al. (Eur J Oper Res 218(1):261–269, <CitationRef CitationID="CR12">2012</CitationRef>) minimizes (1) a carrier’s fleet size and (2) the penalty associated with the alternative...</citationref>

This paper presents a framework to analyze global alliances and mergers in the airline industry under competition. The framework can help airlines identify partners and network structures, and help governments predict changes in social welfare before accepting or rejecting proposed mergers or...

This paper develops approaches for incorporating informational and operational dynamics within models for intermodal drayage operations with flexible tasks. Tasks with flexible origins or destinations create an important complexity. We develop models to minimize the cost of drayage moves when...

In humanitarian relief operations, vehicle routing and supply allocation decisions are critically important. Similar routing and allocation decisions are studied for commercial settings where efficiency, in terms of minimizing cost, is the primary objective. Humanitarian relief is complicated by...

This paper presents a continuous approximation model for the period vehicle routing problem with service choice (PVRP-SC). The PVRP-SC is a variant of the period vehicle routing problem in which the visit frequency to nodes is a decision of the model. This variation can result in more efficient...