Simulation-based control for green transportation with high delivery service

Shipping operations are facing increasing pressures for tighter delivery service levels and green transportation, which conflict with each other and requires trade-off between fuel consumption and delivery service. Furthermore, responsiveness to customer demand requires rapid generation of good quality solutions. This paper presents a simulation-based feedback control algorithm for real-time vehicle route planning which considers delivery timeliness and fuel efficiency. The proposed control theoretic algorithm uses feedback from simulation to adjust the planned routes for timeliness and adaptively adjust the vehicle speed within an allowable range to improve fuel efficiency. The formulation results in a multi-variable continuous variable control system with non-linear dynamics. The control algorithm extends prior work in distributed arrival time control, which is used as a basis to derive analytical insights into this computational intractable optimization problem. Performance of the algorithm is evaluated using a simulation model of an industrial distribution center.