Modeling and Optimization of a Drayage Problem with Foldable and Standard Containers

A scenario of container drayage problem involving both foldable and standard containers is studied. Resource constraint about the limited number of empty foldable containers at depot has to be considered. The optimizing criterion is minimization of the total working time of trucks in operation. Based on the activity-change of truck handling containers, a mathematical formulation is established, and a reactive tabu search algorithm is designed to solve the problem. A number of computational experiments based on randomly generated instances are carried out to validate the effectiveness of the algorithm. Compared with common scenario of using standard containers, the introduction of foldable containers to drayage operation can save transportation costs to some extent.