A collaborative transportation proposal for urban deliveries: Costs and environmental savings

Abstract

What is the best way to make deliveries in urban areas: with big trucks or small cargo vehicles? Which one is better if we think about environmental problems and traffic? Just one medium-sized truck can substitute fifteen small vehicles. A Collaborative transportation plan and operation between shippers, carriers and customers could solve this problem, but only a complete collaboration could do it. Fifteen small vehicles need fifteen different time slots to unload, with fifteen drivers and fifteen engines throwing out smoke and money in the air. This paper presents a proposal to plan collaborative transportation between big players (carrier, shippers and customers) to optimize transportation using trucks with cargo consolidated between various shippers going to one destination (a supermarket for example). The methodology used is a combination between collaborative planning (CPFR) and a mathematical model to optimize the fleet. This study brings the CPFR concept, in a practical approach, to urban deliveries, trying not to contribute just another case for optimization, but to lesson the environmental and traffic impacts on highly populated cities. The paper also presents a case study creating a great opportunity for the development of a methodology capable of contributing to the framing of collaborative transportation, as well as to alternatives, which mitigate issues caused by metropolitan cargo transportation. The case study is a real case concerning one of the biggest retail companies in the world, the Distribution Center in Brasilia (BDC), Brazil. The database has 18,314 lines with cargoes, trucks, information of receipt, goods and invoices.