Optimal Cost Truck Triangulation in a Dynamic Intermodal Freight Transportation Supply Chain

Management of containers and carriers in a supply chain that spreads across different intermodal legs of ocean, land, river, rail and air transport is a challenging task in the shipping industry. During the intermodal phase, the triangulation of containers or carriers is a process that is sought to minimize cost by saving a possible transport leg. In this paper, we discuss an optimal triangulation process of containers carried by trucks in an intermodal transport network. We are addressing a specific triangulation process for the trucks engaged in import drops or export pickups of containers such that they can be effectively reused for the next export pickups or import drops in locations within a neighbourhood. We propose a mathematical model to address this problem in the framework of minimum cost network flows. Further, we introduce a heuristic method using the successive shortest path algorithm for the proposed model. The model is analyzed using data from current shipping networks of one of the major shipping industries for its North America database.