Outsourcing Decisions for Truck Fleets with Quantity Discounts for Continuous Working Shifts

Abstract

To cope with the capacity limitations of enterprises own transport fleet for container transport and the increasing competitive pressure, considering the operating costs and the demand uncertainty, an outsourcing decision-making problem for truck fleet with quantity discounts for continuous working shifts is presented. From the perspective of competition and social-effects analysis, we suggest an extended vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) vehicle scheduling model. The model minimizes costs and provides an evaluation system with minimal mileage and carbon emissions. By adjusting quantity-discount rules and task time windows, our model can be used to provide outsourcing solutions for different combinations of continuous working shifts. We also discuss the influence of other parameter settings on the decision schemes. Finally, we verify both the model and the algorithm using a simulation experiment. The experimental results show that using quantity discounts for fleet outsourcing decisions for different combinations of continuous working shifts improves both vehicle utilization and social benefits. We also highlight new research opportunities based on these results.