A bi-objective multimodal transportation planning problem with an application to a petrochemical ethylene manufacturer

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze and improve the freight transportation plan by considering multimodal transportation with maritime, road, and railway transportation. We develop a bi-objective mathematical model, of which objectives are total cost and number of handling operations, an indicator for operational difficulty. The model decides on the optimal multimodal transportation plan including ship chartering and transportation mode decisions. We generate the Pareto frontier to allow an insight into the trade-offs in changing the transportation mix. We test the mathematical model on real-life instance of a petrochemical ethylene manufacturer located in Turkey, originally used in Ozpeynirci et al (Marit Econ Logist 16: 188-206, 2014). In addition to Ozpeynirci et al (Marit Econ Logist 16: 188-206, 2014), this paper considers a secondary objective and includes rail transport as a third mode in the multimodal transportation mix. In order to analyze the changes in ship chartering and mode selection decisions, we introduce three different scenarios and show that small changes in the transportation mode without restructuring the distribution network may result in significant savings.