Spot Market versus Full Charter Fleet: Decisions Support for Full Truck Load Tenders

Abstract

This paper presents an approach to help business decision-makers gain market share by providing competitive tender offers for Full-Truck-Load (FTL) services. In particular, we compare operating a fleet of Full-Charter-Trucks (FCT), using spot-market (SM) capacity and a mixture of both options against each other. A Pickup and Delivery Problem is modeled, and solved using an Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search heuristic. Computational results indicate strong service benefits combining FCT and SM usage. Numerical experiments are presented in detail to support the findings. Additionally, a real-life case study originating from DB Schenker is presented.