A route problem with customers' preferences for a fourth party logistics provider

In the e-commerce area, a fourth party logistics (4PL) provider is introduced to provide logistics services around the world. Although consumers' preference is an important factor in promoting the satisfaction level, it has not been explicitly investigated in the existing logistics routing literature. Integrating the most two important preferences of customers by conducting a questionnaire survey, a mathematical model is constructed to minimize the linear combination of the transportation cost and the time cost. For small-scale problems, optimal solutions can be obtained by using the EXCEL solver. Numerical examples are conducted to show the effectiveness of the model, and managerial implications are drawn for the 4PL to run an effective logistics system.