Conclusions and future research

Abstract

In this thesis, the operational transportation planning of modern freight forwarding companies is studied. The motivation of this study is that the forwarders are confronted with increasing pressure to increase their operational efficiency of request fulfillment while the internal cost-saving potential is almost exhausted. A further cost reduction can be realized by taking advantage of the synergy effect embedded in cooperation with other forwarders. The extended spectrum of options for request fulfillment offered by cooperation results in more complicated optimization problems in the operational transportation planning. The purpose of the research in this thesis is to develop efficient solution approaches that can help forwarders master the high complexity of these planning problems in the new situation.