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way. Comparing the performance of CTP for different sets, CTP performs even
slightly better for the highly dynamic set HD than for the other two sets MD and
LD. This implies that CTP is more valuable for carriers when a quick response
is expected to the release of customer requests because the exchange of requests
increases the possibility to find a cheaper way to fulfill the requests and this is
very important in highly dynamic environments.
157
147
MY
FL
156
146
155
145
HD
MD
LD
HD
MD
LD
(a) Isolated planning
(b) Collaborative planning
Fig. 3.
Comparison of myopic planning and forward-looking planning
It can be observed that if carriers plan myopically, the quality of the planning
suffers little from the increment of dynamism of the instances. However, the
benefit of having request information in advance can be clearly seen when carriers
plan in a forward-looking way. For set HD, FL performs almost equal with MY
because there is little information about the future known. For sets MD and LD,
FL clearly outperforms MY. This implies that carriers are able to reduce costs
if they can acquire request information in advance and consider this information
in their planning. However, the solution quality cannot be enormously improved
by having this information much earlier than necessary. This effect can be seen
through the comparison of the results for sets MD and LD in Figure 3. In other
words, in a dynamic environment, it is unnecessary for carriers to consider such
requests in their current planning which are to be fulfilled in the far future.
6Con lu on
In order to improve their operational eciency, small and mid-sized freight car-
riers are suggested to integrate external transportation resources into their op-
erational planning process. Besides the option to outsource requests to common
carriers, they can further reduce costs through setting up a horizontal coalition
with fellow companies and perform CTP. In this paper, the DCTPP of a coalition
of carriers offering exchangeable FTL transport services is introduced. A rolling
horizon planning approach is proposed to solve this problem. A computational
study is carried out to identify the potential of cost-savings through CTP and
