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Author(s): G. Ioannou, M. N. Kritikos and G. P. Prastacos
Source: The Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 53, No. 8 (Aug., 2002), pp. 842-854
Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals on behalf of the Operational Research Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/822912
Accessed: 18-05-2015 03:33 UTC
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Introduction
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managementwas the possibility of serving all customers Most of these add-onsarerelatedto reportsthathelp reviews
and managerialcontrol/decision making. All requestswere
even during the peak seasons under heavy traffic loading
optimizing
implemented using standardMapInfo tools and for each
fact
that
conditions. This was attributedto the
the
than
better
Map-Routecan now generatevariousreportsthat can
indeed
route,
was
stage
the routes at the planning
second
The
by the user interactively.Figure 10 providessuch
drivers.
the
by
be
accessed
followed
intuitive schedules
includes the components of all routes with
company's
that
the
a
report
with
was
in-line
that
aspect of Map-Route
times at customerlocations, waiting times
the
arrival
and
to
respect
user-interface
the
of
expectationswas the simplicity
and demand,as well as all the names of
begins,
were
service
until
who
the
users,
'power'thatthe DSS left in the handsof
thatvehicles visit them. Thereare
sequence
in
the
streets
logistics
the
of
the
key decision-makersin the daily operations
can generate, based on
MapInfo
that
reports
such
who
several
the
drivers,
from
came
plan. The thirdpositive reaction
alter the problem
solution,
the
modify
can
the
user
the
which
to
follow
week
one
of
were asked for a trial period
or return
2
of
and
Map-Route,
1
Phases
and
rerun
to
parameters
all
able
were
They
schedules produced by Map-Route.
produced
segments
road
of
set
the
reconfigure
2
and
to
Phase
customers
the
served
finishtheirdeliveryrouteson-time and
within the contractualtime windows. Thus, even the drivers by the knowledge base in orderto derive bettersolutions.
A finalpoint that shouldbe noted relatesto the distances'bought-in'the new application.
times
produced at the various phases of Map-Route. The
some
were
there
above,
views
Apart from the positive
between deliverypoints would generallybe differdistances
full-time
from
apart
that
drivers
some
negativecommentsby
comparing solutions between Phase 1 (straight
ent
when
to
used
that
vehicles
their
own
employment also owned
2 (accurateroutes), or Phase 3 (user adjustPhase
lines),
the
Nevertheless,
seasons.
peak
during
'rent'to the company
differencesmay cause violations of time winThese
ments).
overcompany
to
the
offered
DSS
obvious savings that the
which can be overcome by a combination
constraints,
dow
summary
a
2
Table
provides
came their negative reactions.
(a) select anothersub-networkadjarules:
the
following
of
details.
of Map-Routeimplementation
Phase
1; (b) move earlierthe starttime
of
route
the
cent
to
that
2
in
Table
presented
the
results
from
It is evident
the length of the time window
reduce
(c)
of
scheduling;
and
to
Map-Route,
is
deploy
minimal investment required
in the first phase; and
windows
time
dummy
through
the
for
Furthermore,
SMEs.
for
even
the cost is affordable
ones. Thus, the selected
into
smaller
the
problem
split
(d)
route
in
effective
resulted
particularapplication,Map-Route
in the feasibility of the
role
essential
an
plays
the
sub-network
of
fleet
the
of
existing
use
the
planning by allowing
solution.
The
season.
quality
even
during
peak
vehicles),
company(26
of the solutioncan be inferredby the significantreductionof
both violated time windows and lost sales; note that these
Conclusions
two percentagesare differentdue to the acceptanceof some
off-time window deliveries by several customers. Finally, In this paperwe developed a DSS for the VRPTW for intrauser training on MapInfo and the Map-Routecomponents city fleet planning.Map-Route,is based on the popularGIS
platformMapInfoinstead of proprietarysoftware,and is at
was straightforwardand was completed during the system
the right cost for SMEs. The computational engine is
the
from
were
involved
users
two
the
development (since
IMPACT,a heuristic that provides high quality results in
initial developmentstages). Unfortunately,we did not have
short computationaltimes, coupled with Floyd's shortest
access to commercial software in order to compare our
path algorithmand a knowledge base to allow for efficient
results.
transformationof the Euclideansolutions into effective trips
After the full-scale deployment of Map-Route, several
on the actual street network.The DSS is developed with a
for
were
implementation.
functionalities
requested
additional
Table 2
Parameter
Requirednumberof vehicles
Optimizedroutes
Violated time windows
Lost sales
IMPACTrunningtime (>600 customers)
Final route construction(time)
Cost of two MapInfouser licenses
Cost of digitized maps (city of Athens)
Softwaremaintenancecost (yearly)
Cost of solution algorithms
Training
35
No
20%
- 10%
Ad hoc (Driver)
-
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26
Yes
<5%
<2%
<30 s
Near optimal (< 1 h)
- C 6000
- C 5000
12% of licences
C 0 (freeware)
- :C1000
decision
a GIS-based
Gloannou
etal-Map-Route:
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2
2'
10
10:
17
lo:
11,
apRotereor
user-centricphilosophy,bringingvehicle routingalgorithms
into the handsof planners-schedulers,whose vast experience
and 'common sense' can be the determinantsuccess factors
for the GIS-basedDSS implementationin realenvironments.
The experiences from the deploymentof Map-Routeto an
actual case in the Greek marketwere presentedto demonstratethe phases of the methodologyinherentin the DSS and
reveal several open issues that need to be handled on an
exception basis by the users and/or the knowledge base.
Throughthis case, the flexibility and ease of adaptationof
the DSS were also illustrated.
Via the four-phaseapproachofferedby Map-Route,a user
can easily find a scheduleas well as alternativescheduleson
intra-citytransportationnetworksfor VRPTW.The use of
visualizationalong with the availabilityof GIS can help users
in making improved decisions when solving real world
routing problems, which are everyday reality in logistic
operations,and become even more criticaldue to the expansion of third-partylogistics. Thus, developingand deploying
effective DSSs is a key prerequisite for the successful
operationof logistics groups. Furtherextensions of MapRoute include: (a) integratingmodern meta-heuristicsto
furtherimprovethe qualityof the final solutions;(b) enhancing the approachto handle inter-citynetworkswith additional constraints and route complications; and (c)
integratingthe DSS with warehousemanagementsystems
(eg, MANTIS)or EnterpriseResourcePlanningSystems(eg,
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Research
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854 Journal
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Received September2001;
accepted January 2002 after one revision
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