A tabu search approach to the truck scheduling problem with multiple docks and time windows

• Inbound and outbound trucks have to be scheduled at the dock doors of a cross-dock.
• The objective is the minimization of the total travel time and the total tardiness.
• A mixed integer programming model of this truck scheduling problem is formulated.
• A tabu search approach to solve the problem is described in detail.
• Experiments on new benchmark instances show that good quality solutions are quickly found.

While organizing the cross-docking operations, cross-dock managers are confronted with many decision problems. One of these problems is the truck scheduling problem. This paper presents a truck scheduling problem that is concerned with both inbound and outbound trucks at multiple dock doors. The objective is to minimize the total travel time and the total tardiness. The truck scheduling problem under study is described in detail and a mathematical model of the problem is provided which can be solved to optimality with a mixed integer programming solver, at the expense of a high computation time. Next, a tabu search approach is presented. Experimental results on new benchmark instances indicate that the proposed tabu search is able to find good quality results in a short time period, thus offering potential for integration in cross-docking decision support systems.