New Design of a Truck Load Network

Abstract

The production of full truck load (FTL) services has no standardisation and industrialisation characteristics today. Despite the anticipated cost increases in road freight transport, a large-scale and cross-company pooling of relation-related transport volumes is not expected in the medium term. The main reason for this situation is the ‘artisanal’ kind of production, characterised by an insurmountable driver vehicle bond (often including trailer) resulting in a tight coupling between the driver’s working time and vehicle operating time. The implementation of the multi-shift operation as presented in this research follows a new, not previously practised implementation process. Due to the fact that individual companies cannot create their own synergies and coordinate individual transports in terms of a sequential multi-layer operation, an enterprise-wide network has to be created. This should be a network in which the ‘industrialised’ full load transport, in the form of broken traffic (encounter traffic and shuttle services), can be mapped. The research results are made available for practise and combined in a model-based framework for modeling transport logistics processes and analyses. In a field experiment, the economic effects of the restructured production processes will be investigated to provide reliability for permanent participation to any company in the network. Finally, after the establishment of the developed transportation network, highly frequented depot links will be tested for their potential of bundling and following shift to rail.