Stochastic Optimization Models for Capacity Planning and Allocation in Freight Transportation Services

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Transportation activities are at the core of the economic growth of modern societies. The capacity to efficiently**transport freight from origins to destinations through multiple supply chains is paramount to ensure that both**businesses and societies function efficiently. As economies become more and more globalized, transportation**operations have become increasingly more complex and costly, both from a financial and environmental**perspective. Therefore, there is a great need to develop optimization methodologies that enable transportation**planning problems to be more efficiently solved by logistics decision-makers. ClearDestination (or ClearD) is**an innovative company based in Montréal that is at the forefront of such methodological development for the**home-delivery market. Specifically, ClearD has designed various methodologies (i.e., predictive and**optimization models) that enable home delivery processes to be efficiently and automatically planned. They**now offer a technological platform where capacity planning can be performed to improve how freight, that is**required to be moved by various shippers, is transported by a series of carriers, offering different services, over**a long-haul corridor. Presently, this capacity planning is performed using a deterministic optimization**approach, which can underestimate the negative effects that various sources of uncertainty may have on the**planning process. Through this new partnership with Professor Walter Rei (UQÀM), a leading expert in**stochastic optimization, ClearD will develop a novel stochastic optimization method that explicitly considers**the various sources of uncertainty affecting the planning process and finds better overall solutions. The**proposed methodology will enable decisions to be made that better hedge against possible risks (high delays**and transportation costs) and improve profit margins for all organizations involved (shippers and carriers).