| This research focuses on one of the most common vehicle routing and scheduling (VRS) problems, which involves pickups and deliveries at a trucking terminal, subject to operational time windows, and limited and mixed vehicle capacities. The primary objective of this applied research was to prove that many benefits exist in computerized VRS (CVRS) and to understand and quantify the economic, energy, and environmental benefits by making a comparative analysis between different CVRS optimization (CVRSO) methods and existing manual VRS methods.; A case study approach was used in this research in which Armour Transportation Systems' Saint John terminal operations in New Brunswick were analyzed. A VRS system was set up to make it more convenient and realistically feasible for a trucking company to do optimization by minimizing total time traveled or total distance traveled for the fleet of vehicles, or by minimizing operational costs (by combining fixed costs and both distance-related and time-related costs) for the company with an add-in cost function. The research results showed that efficiency gains were significant; total operation costs were reduced between 48% and 53%, and total energy and greenhouse gas emissions were reduced between 21% and 41%, depending on the type of optimization method used. To bring full economical and environmental benefits of potential computerized routing and scheduling (CRS) applications (that is, solid waste and garbage collection, street sweeping and cleaning, snow plowing and sanding and salting operations, mail delivery, fuel oil delivery, staff scheduling and routing, VRS, etc.) to Canada, the government should take a proactive lead role to promote CRS optimization within private and governmental agencies and to make accurate GIS (Geographic Information System) database widely available throughout the country. |
