Performance Assessment of a Freight Network with Stochastic Capacities

Abstract EN

This paper focuses on performance assessment of a freight network with stochastic capacities by using reliability analysis, in which a node denotes a supplier, a transfer center, a distribution center, or a market, while an arc denotes a logistics service provider offering the freight traffic service for a pair of nodes.

Due to some uncertainties in real environment (for example, a proportion of vehicles owned by the provider may be reserved by other customers), the available capacity of the provider along each arc is stochastic.

Thus, network reliability that at least d units of commodity demand can be successfully delivered from the source to the destination denotes the operational performance of such a freight network.

A d-minimal path–based method is developed to evaluate the freight network reliability.

To advance the efficiency of solving d-minimal paths, an improved model is established by redefining capacity bounds of arcs and minimal paths.

Furthermore, a new concept of expected capacity grounded on network reliability is presented to measure the service performance of the freight network.

A practical case related to the coal delivery network is studied to demonstrate the implications of both network reliability and expected capacity.