Digitalization of fuel supply organizations and optimization of delivery routes in transportation systems

Abstract

Introduction: fuel supply to special rolling stock on railways requires coordinating two decisions: how to lay out the routes of fuel tankers and how often to replenish stocks at containerized automobile fueling stations (CAFS). In practice these tasks are solved separately, although for fuel tankers they are rigidly linked through the tank capacity, while mileage minimization ignores the cost of storing fuel. The aim of the study is a methodology for the joint optimization of delivery routes and supply periodicity, combining the Clarke–Wright algorithm and the Wilson model.Materials and methods: using data from the West Siberian Railway, a distance matrix was constructed between a fuel depot and four CAFS. Routes were obtained by the Clarke–Wright algorithm, while the supply period and batch size were derived from the economic order quantity model subject to the tanker capacity constraint. Instead of mileage savings, the increment of total daily costs was adopted as the route-merging criterion.Results. The cost criterion reduces the number of profitable mergers from six pairs to three. Two routes were obtained with supply periods of 23.8 and 16.7 days and costs of 653 RUB/day versus 732 RUB/day for individual delivery (a 10.7% saving). A single route that is optimal in terms of mileage proves inferior in terms of cost; three of the four tanks are oversized.Conclusions. The methodology simultaneously determines the routes, supply periodicity and required tank capacity, and assesses the robustness of the solution against equipment failure and seasonal peaks, reducing the operating and capital costs of line enterprises.