RESEARCH ARTICLE


Modeling Heterogeneous Fleet Vehicle Allocation Problem with Emissions Considerations



Hande C. Kazanç1, *, Mehmet Soysal2, *, Mustafa Çimen2
1 Department of Business Administration, Çankaya University, Ankara, Turkey
2 Department of Business Administration, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey


Article Metrics

CrossRef Citations:
1
Total Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 1192
Abstract HTML Views: 565
PDF Downloads: 340
ePub Downloads: 267
Total Views/Downloads: 2364
Unique Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 644
Abstract HTML Views: 339
PDF Downloads: 239
ePub Downloads: 183
Total Views/Downloads: 1405



Creative Commons License
© 2021 Kazanç et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at Department of Business Administration, Hacettepe University, 06532 Beytype, Ankara, Turkey; E-mail: mehmetsoysal@hacettepe.edu.tr


Abstract

Aims:

This study proposes a bi-objective linear integer programming model for heterogeneous fleet VAP with emissions considerations. Profit maximization and emissions minimization objectives are employed to handle economic and environmental sustainability purposes.

Background:

Our literature survey shows that there is no model for the heterogeneous fleet VAP with emissions considerations that simultaneously consider vehicle heterogeneity, penalty costs for unmet demands, and emissions from transportation operations.

Objective:

The model is employed to also make several scenario analyses on sustainable freight logistics management to understand the trade-offs among economic and environmental objectives. In freight transportation problems, decision-makers need to be able to maintain profitability and to reduce emissions.

Methods:

In this study, a bi-objective linear integer programming model is proposed for a heterogeneous fleet Vehicle Allocation Problem (VAP) with emissions considerations encountered in the field of sustainable freight transportation.

Results:

In the numerical analyses, various practical assumptions that can be confronted by decision-makers in real life are discussed. In each analysis, total profit and emissions amounts are revealed along with several other KPIs. The results of the analyses provided in this study could also be useful in terms of understanding the relations among pillars of sustainability in VAPs.

Conclusion:

It is thought that the proposed model has the potential to aid decision-making processes in sustainable logistics management.

In the base case analyses, the total profit obtained under profit maximization is about nine times higher than that obtained under emissions minimization. When the aim is to minimize emissions, the total emissions are found to be nearly one-tenth of that of profit maximization. Supported by also additional scenario analyses, it can be concluded that it might not economically viable to be environmentally-friendly for companies. Therefore, companies have to be encouraged or forced to take environmentally and socially responsible actions through legislation. The analyses demonstrated that various legislative policies on emissions may affect the transportation plans differently in such vehicle allocation systems.

Keywords: Vehicle allocation problem, Heterogeneous fleet, Transportation emissions, Sustainable logistics, Freight transportation, Model.