Task selection and routing problems in collaborative truckload transportation

This paper introduces the task selection and routing problem in collaborative transportation in which a truckload carrier receives tasks from shippers and other partners and makes a selection between a private vehicle and an external carrier to serve each task. The objective is to minimize the variable and fixed costs for operating the private fleet plus the total costs charged by the external carrier. The mathematical formulation and the lower bound are established. A memetic algorithm is developed to solve the problem. The computational results show that the proposed algorithm is effective and efficient.