PHYSICAL INTERNET, CONVENTIONAL, AND HYBRID LOGISTIC SYSTEMS: AN OPTIMIZATION BASED COMPARISON

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to compare the performance of the Conventional (CO), Physical Internet (PI), and Hybrid (HY) logistics systems in a road network in order to understand and quantify the advantages and disadvantages of PI. The comparison presented in this work is carried out through Monte-Carlo simulation in which loads are generated randomly and a sequential three phase optimization framework to optimize the CO, PI, and HY logistical networks. By applying the methodology to the CO, PI, and HY logistic systems for the example road network, differences are observed in the total number of the instances containers requiring loading and unloading and total driving time to carry all the loads to their final destination. Finally, the total cost of each logistic policy is calculated and the most economical logistical policy is identified for different scenarios.