A COMPARISON OF IN-VEHICLE AND OUT-OF-VEHICLE FREIGHT CONSOLIDATION STRATEGIES

This paper addresses physical distribution problems, in which terms have to be distributed from an origin to many destinations, and it examines ways to reduce inventories. Under certain conditions, a peddling strategy with no transshipments is shown to be superior to any strategy with transshipments. Although the conditions leading to this result are not always met, the results suggest that transshipments are undesirable for freight distribution, unless of course they serve a purpose unrelated to inventory. This is in contrast with many-to-many shipping operations which, under the same conditions, can benefit greatly from transshipments.