Fleet Management Optimization in Car Rental Industry: Decision Aid Models for Logistics Improvement

This paper describes a real case study combining two different approaches to optimize the logistics performance in a rent-a-car company, leading to the improvement of the vehicle delivery process, reducing the transport costs, and subsequently increasing the customer's satisfaction. The first approach involves the shortest path determination, using the Dijkstra algorithm applied to a parking lot layout using two scenarios named general and specific approaches, whose result was compared to the solution obtained by the application of the Floyd-Warshall algorithm. The second is related to the maximum flow determination by applying and comparing the Ford-Fulkerson and the Goldberg algorithms considering an operational bottleneck due to the seasonality and oscillatory nature of demands. Both approaches were simulated in MATLAB and analysed as a global decision support model.