Comparing Different Approaches on the Door Assignment Problem in LTL-Terminals

Abstract

The work at hand yields two different ways to address the assignment of inbound and outbound doors in less-than-truckload terminals. The considered optimization methods stem from two different scientific fields, which makes the comparison of the techniques a very interesting topic. The first solution approach origins from the field of discrete mathematics. For this purpose, the logistical optimization task is modeled as a time-discrete multi-commodity flow problem with side constraints. Based on this model, a decomposition approach and a modified column generation approach are developed.  The second considered optimization method is an evolutionary multi-objective optimization algorithm (EMOA). This approach is able to handle different optimization goals in parallel. Both algorithms are applied to ten test scenarios yielding different numbers of tours, doors, loading areas, and affected relations.