Freight Operations Modelling for Urban Delivery and Pickup with Flexible Routing: Cluster Transport Modelling Incorporating Discrete-Event Simulation and GIS

Urban pickup and delivery (PUD) activities are important for logistics operations. Real operations general freight involve a high degree of complexity due to daily variability. Discrete-event simulation (DES) is method that can mimic real include stochastic parameters. However, realistic vehicle routing difficult build in DES models. The objective create model routing, which considers the driver’s decisions. Realistic models need predict route (including time distance) variable consignment address backhaul pickup. Geographic information systems (GIS) were combined develop PUD GIS was used process geographical data. Two developed compared. first simple suburb model, second an intersection-based model. industrial data applied including one-year global positioning system (GPS) A case study one tour shown, with results validated actual GPS also compared conventional result shows adequate routing. This work provides combining operation urban PUD. has potential help industry practitioners better understand their current experiment different scenarios.