International express courier routing and scheduling under uncertain demands

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a planning model and a real-time adjustment model to help an international express company facing uncertain demands to plan courier routes and schedules and adjust the planned routes in actual operations. A solution procedure is then developed to efficiently solve the real-time adjustment model. A simulation-based evaluation method is also developed to compare the performance of the proposed models. The test results, related to an international express company's operations, show the good performance of the proposed models. Sensitivity analysis is also performed to gain better insights into knowing how several important parameters affect the solutions.