A systematic evaluation of freight carrier response to receiver reordering behaviour

Abstract

The fields of behavioural transport modelling has been gaining momentum and many researchers have focused on incorporating some elements of stakeholder behaviour and decision making into their freight planning tools. However, investigation of the literature reveals that few papers are devoted to understanding and integrating logistics behaviour of freight receivers into urban transport simulations, and the impact of receiver reordering constraints on other freight agents in the urban transportation network has not been thoroughly investigated.

This paper is therefore concerned with evaluating the impacts that constraints set by freight receivers during reordering have on carriers’ behaviour and cost in an urban freight transport simulation. To achieve this, three key receiver reordering constraints scenarios are simulated: delivery time window durations; delivery frequencies and its associated quantities; and delivery unloading or service time at receiver facilities. These scenarios are then implemented in an agent-based transport simulation and the carrier’s behaviour and delivery cost are evaluated.

Results indicate that narrowing time windows could result in delivery and penalty cost increases of up to 93%. Extending unloading times can see costs and penalties increase by up to 111%. Delivery frequency (and therefore order quantity) also has a major impact of the carrier’s cost, with cost increases of up to 142% when requesting more frequent deliveries of smaller quantities. These results confirm that carrier decisions are influenced significantly by changes in receiver reordering behaviour and unnecessary constraints imposed by receivers during reordering could have significant negative implications on the delivery cost of the carrier. This emphasises the importance of finding a balance between restrictions set by supply chain customers during reordering and the cost associated with those restrictions and highlights the importance of finding ways to urge freight agents, especially receivers, to change their current behaviour to lower the total delivery cost of the supply chain.