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Cold chain distribution: How to deal with node and arc time windows?

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Abstract

Commonly encountered in cold chain logistics, third-party distribution firms are required to deliver temperature-sensitive food products to various retailers with two kinds of time-window constraints: (1) the delivery service must begin within the time windows imposed by the retailers (called node time windows) and (2) each vehicle route is available only in a predefined time interval prescribed by the government (called arc time windows). We study the effects of the retailer time window type (i.e., density of the node time-window constraints) and other cost-related factors on a distribution firm’s legitimacy choice (i.e., the firm chooses to either comply with or violate the governmental time-window policy), food quality, and pollutant emissions in the urban environment. We model the problem as an intractable vehicle routing problem with node and arc time windows and develop a genetic algorithm to tackle it. We conduct a case study to generate the managerial insights on dealing with time windows. We find that the governmental time windows will increase the distribution cost. The governmental time windows has a negative effect on pollutant emissions while showing a positive effect on food safety. Given governmental time windows, a higher demand for node time windows will result in more governmental time-window violations or lower vehicle load factor, which depends on the vehicle fixed cost, fuel price, and government penalty.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the NSFC under Grant Numbers 71831001 and 71772016; Beijing Philosophy and Social Science Foundation under Grant Number 13JGB042; and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant Number 2015jbwy011. Cheng was also supported in part by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University under the Fung Yiu King-Wing Hang Bank Endowed Professorship in Business Administration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Wuzi University, Beijing, China

    Yi Zhang

  2. Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China

    Guowei Hua & Juliang Zhang

  3. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong

    T. C. E. Cheng

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  1. Yi Zhang
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  2. Guowei Hua
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  3. T. C. E. Cheng
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  4. Juliang Zhang
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Correspondence to Guowei Hua.

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Zhang, Y., Hua, G., Cheng, T.C.E. et al. Cold chain distribution: How to deal with node and arc time windows?. Ann Oper Res 291, 1127–1151 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-018-3071-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-018-3071-0

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