EP3472762A1 - Systèmes et procédés de commande de flotte de véhicules - Google Patents

Systèmes et procédés de commande de flotte de véhicules

Info

Publication number
EP3472762A1
EP3472762A1 EP17813851.7A EP17813851A EP3472762A1 EP 3472762 A1 EP3472762 A1 EP 3472762A1 EP 17813851 A EP17813851 A EP 17813851A EP 3472762 A1 EP3472762 A1 EP 3472762A1
Authority
EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
fleet
dedicated
vehicle
time
carrier
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Withdrawn
Application number
EP17813851.7A
Other languages
German (de)
English (en)
Other versions
EP3472762A4 (fr
Inventor
Christopher Lee Scharaswak
Michael Alan DUPRE'
William Landon Taylor
Donald William Showell
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Ryder Integrated Logistics Inc
Original Assignee
Ryder Integrated Logistics Inc
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Priority claimed from US15/184,965 external-priority patent/US11107031B2/en
Application filed by Ryder Integrated Logistics Inc filed Critical Ryder Integrated Logistics Inc
Publication of EP3472762A1 publication Critical patent/EP3472762A1/fr
Publication of EP3472762A4 publication Critical patent/EP3472762A4/fr
Withdrawn legal-status Critical Current

Links

Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F17/00—Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions
    • G06F17/10—Complex mathematical operations
    • G06F17/11—Complex mathematical operations for solving equations, e.g. nonlinear equations, general mathematical optimization problems
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
    • G06Q10/08—Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
    • G06Q10/083—Shipping
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q50/00—Information and communication technology [ICT] specially adapted for implementation of business processes of specific business sectors, e.g. utilities or tourism
    • G06Q50/40—Business processes related to the transportation industry
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G08—SIGNALLING
    • G08G—TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS
    • G08G1/00—Traffic control systems for road vehicles
    • G08G1/20—Monitoring the location of vehicles belonging to a group, e.g. fleet of vehicles, countable or determined number of vehicles
    • G08G1/202—Dispatching vehicles on the basis of a location, e.g. taxi dispatching

Definitions

  • the present disclosure relates generally to vehicle systems and particularly to vehicle fleet control.
  • the disclosed subject matter relates to systems and methods of efficient control of distributed systems of vehicles.
  • a method includes identifying, by a dedicated fleet control server operated by a dedicated carrier, one or more shipments for assignment to a common carrier fleet or a dedicated carrier fleet; receiving, by the dedicated fleet control server from a common carrier fleet server, a plurality of common carrier constraints including an indication of at least one available common carrier vehicle for one or more predetermined windows of time, and costs for shipping the one or more shipments with the at least one available common carrier vehicle along one or more routes during the one or more predetermined windows of time; receiving, by the dedicated fleet control server, vehicle status information from communications circuitry disposed in one or more vehicles of the dedicated carrier fleet; determining, by the dedicated fleet control server in real time while receiving the vehicle status information, one or more dedicated carrier constraints for the one or more predetermined windows of time based on the received vehicle status information; and selectively assigning, by the dedicated fleet control server, the one or more shipments to the dedicated carrier fleet or the common carrier fleet based on the determined one or more dedicated carrier constraints and the received plurality of common carrier constraints
  • a system includes a dedicated carrier fleet with a first plurality of vehicles; and a dedicated fleet control system communicatively coupled to each of the first plurality of vehicles and in communication with at least one common carrier control system, where the dedicated fleet control system is configured to: receive real-time vehicle and driver status information from communications circuitry for each of the first plurality of vehicles; receive real-time availability information for a second plurality of vehicles operated by a common carrier from the common carrier control system for one or more windows of time; determine a plurality of dedicated carrier constraints based, at least in part, on the real-time vehicle and driver status information; and distribute a plurality of shipments among the first plurality of vehicles and the second plurality of vehicles for transportation of the plurality of shipments from respective pickup locations to respective delivery locations within the one or more windows of time based on a determination of routes for the first plurality of vehicles made in real time with a concurrent minimization of an overall cost of a resulting distribution using the received real-time availability information and the plurality of dedicated
  • a method includes distributing, using a dedicated fleet server, a plurality of loads among a dedicated carrier fleet and a common carrier vehicle fleet, for delivery of the plurality of loads from respective pickup locations to respective delivery locations, based on a determination of routes for one or more first vehicles of the dedicated carrier fleet and a minimization, simultaneous with the determination of routes, of an overall cost of the resulting distribution based on dedicated carrier constraints, common carrier constraints for one or more second vehicles of the common carrier vehicle fleet, and a cost model that excludes fixed costs for the dedicated carrier fleet, where at least one of the dedicated carrier constraints is determined in real time during the distributing of the plurality of loads, based on vehicle status information received by the dedicated fleet server from communications circuitry disposed in at least one vehicle of the dedicated carrier fleet, where the dedicated carrier constraints include a constraint that each of the plurality of loads be picked up from a corresponding pickup location for that load and delivered to a corresponding delivery location for that load within a window of time, and where the common carrier constraints include an
  • FIG. 1 is a diagram of an example vehicle fleet system for practicing some implementations of the subject technology.
  • FIG. 2 is a diagram of exemplary vehicle routes for dedicated fleet vehicles having a common home depot in accordance with some implementations of the subject technology
  • FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of an example process that may be performed for shipment distribution and vehicle fleet control in implementations of the subject technology using the system of FIG. 1.
  • FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of another example process that may be performed for shipment distribution and vehicle fleet control in implementations of the subject technology using the system of FIG. 1.
  • FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of another example process that may be performed for shipment distribution and vehicle fleet control in implementations of the subject technology using the system of FIG. 1.
  • FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of an example process that may be performed for fleet sizing in some implementations of the subject technology using the system of FIG. 1.
  • FIG. 7 is a flow diagram of an example process that may be performed for fleet sizing in some implementations of the subject technology using the system of FIG. 1.
  • FIG. 8 is a block diagram depicting components of an example vehicle control system.
  • FIG. 9 is an example process that may be performed at an operations analyzer for practicing implementations of the subject technology using the example device of FIG. 8.
  • FIG. 10 is an example process that may be performed at a preliminary plan generator for practicing implementations of the subject technology using the example device of FIG. 8.
  • FIG. 1 1 is an example process that may be performed at a plan optimizer for practicing implementations of the subject technology using the example device of FIG. 8.
  • the disclosed implementations discussed herein provide systems and methods for assigning shipments between a dedicated carrier fleet and a common carrier fleet in such a way that takes into consideration relevant fleet constraints and leverages the benefit of real-time fleet parameters (e.g., real-time data received at a carrier server from communications circuitry installed in each fleet vehicle).
  • real-time fleet parameters e.g., real-time data received at a carrier server from communications circuitry installed in each fleet vehicle.
  • a dedicated carrier fleet is a fleet of vehicles that are dedicated to or owned by a dedicated carrier organization.
  • the dedicated fleet may be allocated by a dedicated fleet control system, at least for a period of time, for pickup and delivery of shipments for the dedicated carrier organization.
  • Dedicated fleet vehicles may each be associated with a home depot from which they depart and to which they return (e.g., within a period of time such as each day).
  • a dedicated fleet controller or dedicated fleet control system may, for example, be a local, regional, or global transportation organization that manages one or more dedicated fleets for other organizations such as shippers or other corporations.
  • a common carrier fleet may be a third-party shipper that accepts shipping orders from any of various shippers (e.g., on demand).
  • a common carrier fleet can sometimes be used to supplement existing private and dedicated vehicle fleets.
  • manual intervention is performed in which qualitative decision factors such as route preference and perceived quality are used to modify automated assignments (e.g., to increase utilization of dedicated vehicles).
  • manual intervention can decrease the efficiency with which shipments are routed to various vehicles and can also prevent an optimal distribution of shipments from being made due to the complexity and speed of simultaneously (or concurrently) receiving vehicle and driver information from various geographically distributed vehicle communications systems and client (shipper) systems, integrating the received information into a cost model and routing constraints, and minimizing the overall shipping cost for a shipper while meeting various cost, asset, legal, and human related constraints.
  • the subject technology provides a method that includes identifying, by a dedicated fleet control server, one or more shipments for assignment to at least one common carrier vehicle in a common carrier fleet or at least one dedicated vehicle in a dedicated carrier fleet.
  • the dedicated fleet control server and the at least one dedicated vehicle may be operated by a dedicated carrier.
  • the method may also include receiving, by the dedicated fleet control server from a common carrier fleet server, a plurality of common carrier constraints that include an indication of at least one available common carrier vehicle in the common carrier fleet for one or more predetermined windows of time, and common carrier costs for shipping the one or more shipments with the at least one available common carrier vehicle along one or more routes in a distribution network of the common carrier fleet during the one or more predetermined windows of time.
  • the method may also include receiving, by the dedicated fleet control server, vehicle status information from communications circuitry disposed in one or more vehicles of the dedicated carrier fleet for the one or more predetermined windows of time.
  • the method may also include determining, by the dedicated fleet control server in real time while receiving the vehicle status information, one or more dedicated carrier constraints associated with the dedicated carrier fleet. At least one of the one or more dedicated carrier constraints may be determined based on the received vehicle status information.
  • the method may also include selectively assigning, by the dedicated fleet control server, the one or more shipments to the dedicated carrier fleet or the common carrier fleet based on the determined one or more dedicated carrier constraints and the received plurality of common carrier constraints.
  • communicatively interconnected systems of vehicles, common carrier servers, dedicated carrier servers, client devices, and vehicle operator devices are provided herein that employ an optimization model that addresses, for the first time in a single objective model, the decision of how to assign loads and routes between dedicated assets and common carriers, thereby providing a more efficient shipping system that can be implemented to move goods on a local, regional, state-wide, nation-wide, multi-national, and/or global scale.
  • a transportation organization such as a dedicated carrier may use the dedicated fleet control system of the subject technology to allocate truck, trailer, and/or other vehicle capacity as a dedicated fleet to dedicated customers based on historical shipment data.
  • Dedicated resources e.g., each dedicated fleet vehicle
  • a dedicated fleet controller may assign, or re-assign in real time, some shipments to a common carrier in addition to an assigned/dedicated fleet in order to supplement dedicated resources that are assigned to a customer, as well as to take advantage of any situations in which the cost of common carriers makes them the best cost alternative.
  • the dedicated fleet control system of the subject technology may generate shipment assignments based, at least in part, on factors such as driver working hours constraints or constraints that require each vehicle to return to its home depot within a period of time (e.g., each day). More specifically, assignment systems and methods based on direct route costs for each shipment, may be supplemented by other factors or constraints such as timeliness of deliveries (e.g., customer service), the ability to return dedicated fleet drivers to their home depot at the end of each shift, the backhaul probability of each route (e.g., to reduce empty or less-that-full miles travelled on return routes), maximizing the utilization of dedicated assets (e.g., reducing or minimizing idle time and less-than-full miles for each vehicle of a dedicated fleet), and/or other real-time information such as vehicle mechanical issues (e.g., mechanical problems that can arise at any time), safety issues, fuel prices, oil prices, highway conditions such as traffic conditions and associated delays and/or road work or conditions and associated delays, accidents, etc..
  • vehicle mechanical issues e
  • the real-time data to be considered for shipping assignments can be widely distributed (e.g., data from tens, hundreds, or thousands of individual vehicles distributed over several square miles, tens of square miles, hundreds of square miles, millions of square miles, etc., and/or data from traffic information servers, market servers such as oil market servers, government and regulatory agency servers, repair facility servers dedicated carrier servers, common carrier servers, etc.). Some or all of this real-time data may also be constantly changing responsive to changing prices, conditions and/or events.
  • FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a networked system of vehicles including a dedicated vehicle fleet and a common carrier fleet.
  • system 100 may include a dedicated fleet 102 and a common carrier fleet 132.
  • Dedicated fleet 102 may be operated by a dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • Common carrier fleet 132 may be operated by a common carrier control system 130.
  • a control system may operate a vehicle fleet by assigning shipments among the vehicles (e.g.
  • the control system may transmit a travel route such as a daily route (e.g., in GPS coordinates) to a GPS guidance system in the vehicle that provides turn-by- turn directions for a driver of the vehicle.
  • the control system may transmit a travel route such as a daily route (e.g., in GPS coordinates) to a GPS guidance system in a self-driving vehicle that self-navigates the travel route.
  • dedicated fleet 102 may include a plurality of dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10.
  • Each dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 may be associated with a home depot 108 such that each home depot 108 serves a group 106 of dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10.
  • Dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 may be operated by dedicated fleet control system 104 such that each dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 departs from, and returns to, its home depot 108 within a period of time (e.g., each day, each week, etc.). In this way, operators such as drivers of each dedicated fleet vehicle may be provided with an enhanced lifestyle that avoids overnight or other extended trips away from home.
  • Each dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 may be in communication with dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • each dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 may have communications circuitry 150 included therein that communicates with a server such as server 1 14 of dedicated fleet control system 104. Communications between communications circuitry 150 of each dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 and server 1 14 may include status information provided from the vehicle to server 1 14 and/or shipment assignment instructions provided from server 1 14 to the vehicle (as examples).
  • Status information provided from the vehicle may include vehicle location information (e.g., global positioning system (GPS) coordinates), vehicle hours of operation information, driver working time or hours of service information, driver available hours of service information, fuel level information, maintenance information, an identifier of a home depot, shipment status information, and/or other status information for the vehicle and/or the driver of the vehicle, discussed further below.
  • vehicle location information e.g., global positioning system (GPS) coordinates
  • vehicle hours of operation information e.g., driver working time or hours of service information
  • driver available hours of service information e.g., fuel level information, maintenance information, an identifier of a home depot, shipment status information, and/or other status information for the vehicle and/or the driver of the vehicle, discussed further below.
  • GPS global positioning system
  • Vehicle location information may include continuously or periodically reported global positioning system (GPS) coordinates that allow server 1 14 to track the movements of each vehicle 1 10.
  • the vehicle location information may also, or alternatively, include an identifier of a pickup location or a delivery location at which the vehicle is located (e.g., during loading or unloading of shipments).
  • the identifier of the pickup location or the delivery location may include an address of the location, GPS coordinates of the location, or a numerical identifier of the location that corresponds to an account stored at server 1 14 in connection with other location information such as a company name, a contact number or method, or other information associated with the location.
  • Vehicle hours of operation information may include a real-time updated amount of time since the vehicle departed it's home depot, an amount of time since the vehicle departed a pickup location or a delivery location, a total number of hours during which the vehicle has been operated within a particular time window such as during one day, during one week, during one month, during, one season, or during one year (as examples).
  • Driver working time or hours of service information may include an amount of time since a driver of the vehicle entered the vehicle, an amount of time since the driver of the vehicle departed a home depot, a pickup location or a delivery location, a total number of hours during which the driver has been operating the vehicle within a particular time window such as during one day, during one week, during one month, during one season, or during one year (as examples).
  • Driver working time or hours of service information may include a real-time current working hours total that is continuously updated throughout each shift.
  • Driver available hours of service information may include a real-time updated amount of time before a driver of the vehicle hits a driving time limit such as a regulatory limit.
  • a regulatory limit may be set by the control system 104, or may be received by the control system from a government, union, or other agency.
  • Fuel level information may include a real-time updated amount of fuel in one or more fuel tanks of each vehicle.
  • the amount of fuel may be determined by electronic fuel sensors that form a portion of a vehicle computing system for each vehicle.
  • Real-time maintenance information may include a maintenance reminder for the vehicle or a maintenance alert for the vehicle.
  • a vehicle maintenance reminder may include, for example, a service due reminder for one or more services.
  • Services may include an oil change or inspection, a belt change or inspection, a brake fluid change or inspection, a brake pad change or inspection, a transmission fluid change or inspection, and/or a tire rotation, change or inspection (as examples).
  • a vehicle maintenance alert may include a driver-detected or automatically-detected problem with the vehicle. For example, an automated tire-pressure monitor may determine that one or more of the vehicle's tires are low on air or have lost air pressure.
  • communications circuitry 150 in that vehicle may send an alert to communications devices 1 16 that the vehicle's tires are low on air or have lost air pressure.
  • communications circuitry 150 may provide vehicle maintenance alerts or other alerts to communications devices 1 16 related to events such as an air-bag-sensor-detected air bag deployment, an accelerometer or pressure-sensor-detected collision, a fuel-sensor- detected fuel leak or other vehicle-sensor-detected events.
  • the identifier of the home depot for a vehicle may include an address of the home depot, GPS coordinates of the home depot, or a numerical identifier of the home depot that is stored at server 1 14 in connection with other home depot information.
  • Shipment status information may include a real-time updated pick-up status, a real-time updated delivery status, or a real-time updated location of each shipment carried by a particular vehicle.
  • the real-time updated pick-up status may include an indicator of whether the shipment has been picked up.
  • the real-time updated delivery status may include an indicator of whether the shipment has been delivered.
  • the foregoing and other real-time updated values that may be reported by the vehicle communications circuitry may be updated, for example, every minute, every ten minutes, every hour, several times per minute, several times per second, hundreds of times per second, thousands of times per second, etc.
  • Assignment instructions provided from server 1 14 to communications circuitry 150 of each vehicle 1 10 may include one or more travel routes such as daily routes for that vehicle.
  • the travel routes may be stored at the vehicle and may, for example, be automatically imported by the vehicle computing system into a mapping device that provides visual and/or audio directions to a driver of the vehicle for navigating the travel routes.
  • Server 1 14 of dedicated fleet control system 104 may receive shipment orders from a customer to which control system 104 has dedicated a fleet 102. Server 1 14 may, based on various factors, constraints, and operations described in further detail hereinafter, automatically and in real time, assign the shipments for pickup and/or delivery to one or more of dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 and/or to common carrier vehicles 134.
  • common carrier fleet 132 may include one or more common carrier vehicles 134.
  • Common carrier vehicles 134 may, optionally include communications circuitry 160 for communication with common carrier control system 130 (e.g., with server 140 via communications devices 142).
  • Communications circuitry 160 of common carrier vehicles 134 may perform some or all of the functions described above in connection with communications circuitry 150 of dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10.
  • communications circuitry 160 of common carrier vehicles 134 may provide location information and/or other vehicle and/or driver status information as described herein for each vehicle 134 to server 140.
  • Server 140 may generate one or more common carrier constraints for common carrier vehicles 134 (e.g., in real time) based on the received common carrier vehicle and/or driver status information received from communications circuitry 160 and may provide the generated common carrier constraints (e.g., in real time) to server 1 14 for route and/or carrier assignment operations.
  • common carrier constraints e.g., in real time
  • communications circuitry 160 may provide vehicle and/or status information for common carrier vehicles 134 directly to server 1 14 and server 1 14 may generate and apply some or all of the common carrier constrains at server 1 14.
  • Communications devices 142 of server 140 may be operated by server 140 for communications with common carrier vehicles 134 and/or communications with server 1 14 (e.g., via communications devices 1 16 of server 1 14).
  • common carrier control system 130 may provide common carrier constraints 144 to dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • Server 1 14 may use the provided common carrier constraints 144 in assigning shipments for delivery between the dedicated fleet 102 and the common carrier fleet 132.
  • dedicated carrier server 1 14 and common carrier server 130 of FIG. 1 are each shown as a single server, in various implementations dedicated fleet control system 104 and/or common carrier control system 130 may each store and provide access to data on multiple networked dedicated carrier servers and/or multiple networked common carrier servers.
  • dedicated carrier server 1 14 and/or common carrier server 140 may exchange and/or retrieve real-time data for shipping assignments from one or more outside servers such as traffic information servers, highway conditions servers, GPS system servers, market servers such as oil market servers, or other networked information sources for incorporation into shipping assignment operations.
  • outside servers such as traffic information servers, highway conditions servers, GPS system servers, market servers such as oil market servers, or other networked information sources for incorporation into shipping assignment operations.
  • Common carrier constraints 144 may include an indication of a number of available common carrier vehicles 134 in the common carrier vehicle feet 132 (e.g., for one or more windows of time such as for one day, a portion of a day, multiple days, one week, one month, one quarter, or the like), common carrier costs for specific routes in a distribution network for the common carrier fleet, and/or common carrier costs for shipping one or more shipments with the available common carrier vehicles along specific routes in a distribution network of the common carrier fleet during one or more predetermined windows of time (as examples).
  • Communications devices 1 16 of server 1 14 may be operated for communications with communications circuitry 150 of dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10, with server 140, with other external systems (e.g., traffic systems, weather reporting systems, law enforcement systems, or other systems), and/or with operator devices such as operator device 1 12.
  • Operator device 1 12 may be, for example, a mobile phone, a smart phone, a tablet, a portable digital assistant, a pager, a tablet, or a laptop. Operator device 1 12 may be carried by an operator such as a driver of a vehicle 1 10 during and/or after working hours and may be in communications with communications circuitry 150 of a vehicle 1 10 and/or with dedicated fleet control system 104 as shown in FIG. 1.
  • operator device 1 12 may communicate with server 1 14 via communications circuitry 150.
  • operator device 1 12 may be communicatively coupled to communications circuitry 150 (e.g., via a wired or wireless connection) while the operator device is located within the cab of the vehicle.
  • Communications such as shipment assignment and route instructions may be provided from server 1 14 to communications circuitry 150 over a network such as a cellular data network or the Internet and then communicated from communications circuitry 150 to operator device 1 12.
  • Delivery reporting information, pickup reporting information, driver identity information, and/or other information may be entered into operator device 1 12 by the driver and, when device 1 12 is communicatively coupled to communications circuitry 150, uploaded to server 1 14 via communications circuitry 150.
  • operator device 1 12 may communicate with server 1 14 over a network such as a cellular data network or the Internet without intervening communication with communications circuitry 150.
  • server 1 14, server 140, communications circuitry 150 of vehicles 1 10, operator device 1 12, and/or communications circuitry 160 of vehicles 134 can communicate with one another via a network such as the Internet, an intranet, a local area network, a wide area network, a wired network, a cellular communications network, a wireless network, or a virtual private network (VPN) in various scenarios and implementations.
  • a network such as the Internet, an intranet, a local area network, a wide area network, a wired network, a cellular communications network, a wireless network, or a virtual private network (VPN) in various scenarios and implementations.
  • VPN virtual private network
  • operator device 1 12 may communicate with communications circuitry 150 of a vehicle 1 10 (e.g., via near field communications, Bluetooth ® communications, or other wired or wireless communications) when operator device 1 12 is within a proximity (e.g., in the cab) of a vehicle 1 10.
  • server 1 14 e.g., periodically, continuously, or in response to events such as delivery, pickup, or working time threshold events.
  • driver working time and/or driver current available hours may be reported to server 1 14 and used by server 1 14 in allocating shipments between dedicated fleet 102 and common carrier fleet 132.
  • server 1 14 may store and/or generate information to be used for assigning shipments between dedicated fleet 102 and common carrier fleet 132 such as a cost model 1 18 (e.g., a mathematical description, implemented in software and configurable based on real-time real-world data such as status information from vehicles 1 10 and/or common carrier constraints 144), operator data 120 (e.g., stored and/or realtime driver working time and/or driver current available hours for one or more windows of time), dedicated fleet data 122 (e.g., a number of vehicles 1 10 in dedicated fleet 102, a maintenance status of each vehicle, a fuel level of each vehicle, a maximum range of each vehicle, a capacity of each vehicle, a home depot of each vehicle, etc.), and one or more dedicated carrier constraints 124.
  • a cost model 1 18 e.g., a mathematical description, implemented in software and configurable based on real-time real-world data such as status information from vehicles 1 10 and/or common carrier constraints 144
  • operator data 120 e.g., stored and
  • Operator data 120, dedicated fleet data 122, and/or dedicated carrier constraints 124 may be continuously, periodically, or otherwise updated (e.g., in real time) based on data received from vehicles 1 10.
  • Dedicated carrier constraints 124 as discussed in further detail hereinafter, may be predetermined or may be generated by server 1 14 (e.g., in real time based, in part, on status information from communications circuitry 150).
  • communications circuitry 150 may be coupled with operational circuitry for the vehicle such that operation of the vehicle is controlled by the vehicle itself according to instructions (e.g., delivery and pickup instructions for one or more shipments) from server 1 14.
  • FIG. 1 shows an example of a system in which dedicated fleet control system 104 operates a single dedicated fleet 102, this is merely illustrative. In other implementations, dedicated fleet control system 104 may operate more than one dedicated fleet, each fleet dedicated to a particular customer or shipper. In order to efficiently use dedicated fleet vehicles, the dedicated fleet vehicles may be reassigned (e.g., periodically such as once per month, once per quarter, twice per year, once per year, or in response to a change in customer demand or other factors).
  • Reassignment of dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 may include moving one or more dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 from one dedicated fleet (e.g., dedicated fleet 102) to another dedicated fleet that is dedicated, by control system 104 to an organization or client that is different from the organization or client to which dedicated fleet 102 is assigned, may include adding additional (e.g., newly purchased) vehicles to a dedicated fleet, or permanently removing one or more vehicles from all dedicated fleets (e.g., by selling or donating the vehicle(s)).
  • FIG. 2 shows a diagram of two exemplary routes for two corresponding dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10, each associated with a common home depot 108.
  • a first vehicle 1 10 may operate to carry a load 200 (e.g., a load containing one or more individual shipments) along a route 204 that includes various nodes 206.
  • Each node 206 may be a pickup and/or delivery location for one or more shipments in the load 200.
  • route 204 begins and ends at home depot 108.
  • a second vehicle 1 10 may be operated to carry another load (e.g., a load including two shipments 200P) along another route 208 that includes various nodes 206.
  • routes 204 and 208 include one common node 206 and a plurality of different nodes 206.
  • Routes for each vehicle 1 10 may be determined in a simultaneous operation with the assignment of shipments among vehicles 1 10 and common carrier fleet 132. The simultaneous route determination and assignment of shipments may be performed using the cost model 1 18, the operator data 120, the dedicated fleet data 122, the common carrier constraints 144, real-time data from vehicles 1 10, and/or various dedicated vehicle constraints as described herein.
  • dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 may transmit vehicle and/or driver status information to dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 may continuously report its location, may report arrival and/or departure times for each node 206 and/or home depot 108, and/or may report other vehicle and driver status information as described herein to control system 104.
  • a home depot departure notification maybe transmitted from communications circuitry 150 to dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • communications circuitry 150 may continuously or periodically report location information to dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • communications circuitry 150 may transmit an arrival notification for that node. If that node is a pickup node, when load 200 is loaded into vehicle 1 10, communications circuitry 150 may transmit a pickup time notification to dedicated fleet control system 104. While travelling from pickup node 206 to a delivery node 206, communications circuitry 150 may continuously or periodically report location information to dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • communications circuitry 150 may transmit an arrival notification for that node. If that node is a delivery node 206 for some or all of load 200, when some or all of load 200 is unloaded from vehicle 1 10, communications circuitry 150 may transmit a delivery time notification to dedicated fleet control system 104. Upon return to home depot 108, communications circuitry 150 may transmit a home depot return notification.
  • routing for vehicle 1 10 may be determined, in part, based on a backhaul constraint that increases the likelihood that vehicle 1 10 will carry a load from a last node 206 to home depot 108 and/or from a second to last node 206 to a last node 206 (as examples) such that trip from the furthest node 206 back toward home depot 108 carries at least a partial load.
  • home depot 108 may also be in electronic communication with dedicated fleet control system 104 and may exchange other information for reporting of vehicle, driver, and/or load information.
  • FIG. 3 depicts a flow diagram of an example process for selectively assigning shipments (e.g., shipment orders received from a client device) between a dedicated carrier and a common carrier, according to various aspects of the subject technology.
  • shipments e.g., shipment orders received from a client device
  • FIG. 3 depicts a flow diagram of an example process for selectively assigning shipments (e.g., shipment orders received from a client device) between a dedicated carrier and a common carrier, according to various aspects of the subject technology.
  • shipments e.g., shipment orders received from a client device
  • FIG. 3 depicts a flow diagram of an example process for selectively assigning shipments (e.g., shipment orders received from a client device) between a dedicated carrier and a common carrier, according to various aspects of the subject technology.
  • the various blocks of the example process of FIG. 3 are described herein with reference to the components and/or processes described herein.
  • One or more of the blocks of the example process of FIG. 3 may be implemented
  • a dedicated fleet control server such as server 1 14 of FIG.
  • a shipment order containing pickup and delivery instructions for one or more shipments for an organization to which dedicated fleet 102 is dedicated may be received.
  • the dedicated fleet control server 1 14 may receive, from a common carrier fleet server 140, a plurality of common carrier constraints 144.
  • server 140 may determine a number of (e.g., at least one) available common carrier vehicles and costs associated with the operation of those vehicles (e.g., in real time based on availability) and may provide real-time common carrier constraints, including a cost per vehicle, a cost per route, a cost per weight, a cost per distance, and/or a number of available vehicles to server 1 14.
  • the common carrier constraints may include an indication of a number of available common carrier vehicles in the common carrier vehicle fleet 132 for one or more predetermined windows of time, and common carrier costs for shipping the one or more shipments with the available common carrier vehicles 134 along specific routes in a distribution network of the common carrier fleet 132 during the one or more predetermined windows of time.
  • a window of time may include a day, a week, a month, a quarter, a season, or other suitable period of time.
  • the common carrier constraints 144 may be constantly changing and thus may be provided with sufficient frequency that server 1 14 can, in real time during shipping assignment operations, incorporate any changes in the common carrier constraints.
  • the dedicated fleet control server 1 14 may receive vehicle status information from communications circuitry 150 disposed in each vehicle 1 10 of the dedicated carrier fleet 102 for the one or more predetermined windows of time.
  • the vehicle status information may be constantly changing (e.g., due to changing positions of the vehicles of the fleet, changing shipment status information, changing traffic or other highway conditions, maintenance or mechanical issues, etc. that occur before, during, and after delivery operations) and thus may be provided with sufficient frequency that server 1 14 can, in real time during shipping assignment operations, incorporate any changes in the vehicle status information.
  • the dedicated fleet control server 1 14 may determine, in real time while receiving the vehicle status information, one or more dedicated carrier constraints associated with the dedicated carrier fleet 102. At least one of the dedicated carrier constraints may be determined based on the received vehicle status information. Because the vehicle status information may be constantly changing, dedicated carrier constraints may be constantly updated in real time during shipping assignment operations. For example, server 1 14 may receive a real-time current working hours total from a dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 for a driver of that vehicle 1 10. Server 1 14 may determine, based on the real-time current working hours total, a remaining available hours total for the driver (e.g., an available working hours value for the driver). Server 1 14 may then generate a dedicated carrier constraint that prevents assigning any shipments to the driver that would cause the driver to work beyond the remaining available hours total to complete the deliveries.
  • server 1 14 may receive a real-time current working hours total from a dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 for a driver of that vehicle 1 10.
  • Server 1 14 may determine, based on the real-time current working hours total, a remaining available
  • dedicated fleet control server 1 14 may selectively assign the one or more shipments to the dedicated fleet 102 or the common carrier fleet 132 based on the determined dedicated carrier constraints and the received common carrier constraints.
  • the one or more shipments may be assigned in real time as constraints are received or calculated (e.g., calculated in real time during the selective assignment based on constantly changing data from distributed components of the system such as vehicles and various networked servers).
  • the utilization of the dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 can be set at a desirable level while minimizing costs using the common carrier fleet 132, and while ensuring dedicated fleet vehicle maintenance, home depot consistency, and driver safety, all before the data upon which the selective assignment is based becomes obsolete.
  • selective assignment operations are provided below.
  • the operations of block 306 may include, for example, receiving a real-time current working hours total from a dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 for a driver of that vehicle while performing the operations of block 308.
  • the operations of block 308 may include not selecting the driver for any of the one or more shipments if the dedicated carrier constraint that prevents assigning the one or more shipments for the driver within the one or more predetermined windows of time that cause the driver to work beyond the remaining available hours total is not satisfied.
  • the remaining hours total may be determined by server 1 14 to be a difference between a working hours maximum (e.g., 8 hours, 12 hours, or 14 hours) and the current working hours total.
  • the operations of block 308 may include assigning a shipment to a common carrier fleet based on not selecting the driver. In some implementations, the shipment may be assigned to another driver of the dedicated vehicle fleet.
  • vehicle status information for each vehicle 1 10 of the dedicated vehicle fleet 102 may include a real-time remaining available driving hours value for a driver of that vehicle 1 10 within the one or more predetermined windows of time, and the operations of block 308 may include selecting only dedicated vehicle fleet drivers with real-time available driving hours values that satisfy a predetermined threshold (e.g., that are greater than a driving hours threshold).
  • a predetermined threshold e.g., that are greater than a driving hours threshold.
  • the vehicle status information for a particular dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 may include a maintenance notice for that vehicle 1 10 during one or the one or more predetermined windows of time and the operations of block 308 may include preventing assignment of shipments to that vehicle 1 10 during the one or more predetermined windows of time until the maintenance notice is cleared.
  • a shipment scheduled for that vehicle 1 10 during the window of time may be assigned to a common carrier fleet 132 or the shipment may be assigned to another dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 of the dedicated vehicle fleet 102.
  • the vehicle status information for a particular dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 may include an identifier of a home depot 108 for that vehicle, and the operations of block 306 may include generating a constraint that causes a route for that vehicle 1 10 to begin and end at the identified home depot 108.
  • a shipment plan may be generated or updated by the dedicated fleet control server 1 14 based on the selective assignment.
  • the shipment plan may include a route for each dedicated fleet vehicle to be operated and an assignment either to a dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 or a common carrier 132 for each shipment.
  • the shipment plan may be implemented as a group of data fields pertaining to one or more shipments.
  • the shipment plan may be stored at the dedicated fleet server 1 14.
  • a portion of the shipment plan (e.g., a list of shipments to be made by the common carrier fleet) may be provided (e.g., transmitted electronically from server 1 14 to server 140) to the common carrier fleet server 140 for distribution of a first portion of the one or more shipments to the common carrier fleet.
  • Assignments from a second portion of the shipping plan for a second portion of the one or more shipments may be provided by the dedicated fleet control server 1 14 to the communications circuitry 150 of at least some of the vehicles 1 10 of the dedicated fleet 102.
  • a travel route e.g., a daily route
  • shipping pickup and delivery instructions e.g., instructions noting each node 206 on the route
  • the travel route may be stored by a computing system of each vehicle or transmitted by or accessible from a server to be provided to the driver of the vehicle (e.g., as turn-by-turn directions with a map and shipment instructions for each shipment) or for autonomous execution by a driverless vehicle.
  • One or more travel routes may be provided to each vehicle each day, each week, each month, each quarter, each season, at any other suitable time.
  • the travel routes 204/208 may be daily routes that are updated from the server 1 14 to vehicles 1 10 one or more times during each delivery day.
  • the travel routes 204/208 may be provided from the dedicated fleet control server 1 14 to an operator device 1 12.
  • the travel routes 204/208 may be provided to the vehicle 1 10 from the operator device 1 12 when the operator device is within a proximity (e.g., within range of short-range communications circuitry) of the vehicle 1 10.
  • the travel routes 204/208 may be loaded on the operator device 1 12 and automatically downloaded to the vehicle 1 10 when the driver enters the vehicle so that directions (e.g., turn-by-turn directions) can be generated for the driver to help the driver timely pickup and deliver all assigned shipments.
  • FIG. 4 depicts a flow diagram of another example process for selectively assigning shipments (e.g., shipment orders received from a client device) between a dedicated carrier and a common carrier, according to various aspects of the subject technology.
  • shipments e.g., shipment orders received from a client device
  • FIG. 4 depicts a flow diagram of another example process for selectively assigning shipments (e.g., shipment orders received from a client device) between a dedicated carrier and a common carrier, according to various aspects of the subject technology.
  • shipments e.g., shipment orders received from a client device
  • FIG. 4 depicts a flow diagram of another example process for selectively assigning shipments (e.g., shipment orders received from a client device) between a dedicated carrier and a common carrier, according to various aspects of the subject technology.
  • the one or more of the blocks of the example process of FIG. 4 may be implemented, for example, by one or more processors, including, for example, server 1 14 of FIG. 1 or one or more components or
  • the blocks of the example process of FIG. 4 are described as occurring in serial, or linearly. However, multiple blocks of the example process of FIG. 4 may occur in parallel. In addition, the blocks of the example process of FIG. 4 need not be performed in the order shown and/or one or more of the blocks of the example process of FIG. 4 need not be performed.
  • the operations described below in connection with FIG. 4 may be performed by a system to operate a dedicated carrier fleet 102 that includes a first plurality of vehicles (e.g., dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10).
  • the system may include a database of common carrier constraints associated with at least one common carrier fleet (e.g., common carrier fleet 132) that may have a second plurality of vehicles (e.g., common carrier vehicles 134).
  • the system may include a dedicated fleet control system (e.g., system 104) communicatively coupled to each of the first plurality of vehicles and in communication with at least one external routing system (e.g., common carrier control system 130) for the second plurality of vehicles.
  • dedicated fleet control system 104 may be configured to receive, at block 400, real-time vehicle and driver status information from communications circuitry 150 for each of the first plurality of vehicles 1 10 (e.g., real-time location information, working hours information, fuel level information, maintenance information, pickup and/or delivery information etc.).
  • real-time vehicle and driver status information from communications circuitry 150 for each of the first plurality of vehicles 1 10 (e.g., real-time location information, working hours information, fuel level information, maintenance information, pickup and/or delivery information etc.).
  • Dedicated fleet control system 104 may receive, at block 402, real-time availability information for a second plurality of vehicles operated by a common carrier from the common carrier control system for one or more windows of time. [0081] Dedicated fleet control system 104 may determine, at block 404, a plurality of dedicated carrier constraints based, at least in part, on the real-time vehicle and driver status information and, at block 406, distribute a plurality of shipments among the first plurality of vehicles 1 10 and the second plurality of vehicles 134 for transportation of the plurality of shipments from respective pickup locations to respective delivery locations within the one or more windows of time based on a determination of routes such as routes 204 and 208 of FIG. 2 for the first plurality of vehicles 1 10 made in real time with a concurrent minimization of an overall cost of a resulting distribution using the received real-time availability information and the dedicated carrier constraints.
  • the database of common carrier constraints may be a remote database operated by dedicated fleet control system 104, a local database (e.g., storage of server 1 14 of FIG. 1) operated by dedicated fleet control system 104, or a remote database of a common carrier control system 130.
  • the common carrier control system 130 may provide, at various times, the common carrier constraints to the dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • common carrier control 130 system may provide the common carrier constraints to dedicated fleet control system 104 each day (e.g., each morning), more than once per day (e.g., twice per day, three times per day, or continuously or nearly continuously), each week, each month, each quarter, each year, or may provide the common carrier constraints responsive to an event such as a request from dedicated fleet control system 104, a change in the common carrier fleet 132, and/or a change or update to the constraints.
  • server 1 14 can be provided with and incorporate real-time updated common carrier information (and/or other real-time information) to distribute a plurality of shipments among various dedicated carrier vehicles 1 10 and common carrier vehicles 134 in a way that would be impossible to perform by a human being before the common carrier information (and/or other real-time information) changes sufficiently to affect the resulting distribution.
  • the concurrent minimization of the overall cost of the resulting distribution includes a minimization based on a cost model (see, e.g., Model 1 discussed hereinafter) that excludes fixed costs for the first plurality of vehicles 1 10, as described in further detail hereinafter.
  • a cost model see, e.g., Model 1 discussed hereinafter
  • the minimization based on the cost model that excludes fixed costs for the first plurality of vehicles 1 10 may include a minimization of a sum of a selection factor multiplied by a travel cost for each of the first plurality of vehicles 1 10 and each of the second plurality of vehicles 134 for travel between each pickup location and each delivery location, as described in further detail hereinafter.
  • the dedicated carrier constraints include a time window constraint that ensures each of the plurality of shipments is picked up from its pickup location and delivered to its delivery location within a time window.
  • the time window may correspond to a maximum allowable time difference between a pickup time and a delivery time.
  • the time window constraint may include a flexibility factor applied to the maximum allowable time difference between the pickup time and the delivery time.
  • the flexibility factor may, for example, be a user-specified variability in the maximum allowable time difference that facilitates a reduction in size for the dedicated carrier fleet 102.
  • the dedicated carrier constraints include an empty- miles constraint and a less-than-full-miles constraint that, in combination, reduce a number of determined routes that include portions in which any vehicle of the dedicated carrier fleet 102 travels with less than a full load such that miles travelled less than full for each of the first plurality of vehicles 1 10 satisfies a predetermined threshold (e.g., is less than a less-than-full threshold).
  • a predetermined threshold e.g., is less than a less-than-full threshold.
  • an empty-miles constraint may be implemented in part by applying a weighting factor that discourages routes 204/208 for a dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 that include a route portion in which the vehicle 1 10 is empty.
  • a less-than-full-miles constraint may be implemented in part by applying a weighting factor that discourages routes 204/208 for a dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 that include a portion in which the vehicle 1 10 is not full to its capacity.
  • each of the first plurality of vehicles 1 10 is associated with a home depot 108
  • the status information includes at least an identifier of the home depot 108 for each of the first plurality of vehicles
  • the dedicated carrier constraints include a constraint that each of the first plurality of vehicles 1 10 depart from and return to its respective home depot 108 at a predetermined time or within a predetermined time window.
  • the home depot constraint may be a constraint that ensures that each dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 departs from and returns to its respective home depot 108 at a predetermined time (e.g., each day).
  • a backhaul probability may be a probability of a vehicle carrying cargo on a return journey from a delivery location.
  • the dedicated carrier constraints include a backhaul probability constraint that modifies the resulting distribution such that a number of empty return routes for the first plurality of vehicles 1 10 satisfies a predetermined threshold (e.g., is below an empty backhaul threshold).
  • the backhaul probability constraint may be implemented, in some examples, as an increased or decreased empty-miles constraint applied to route portions in the direction of the home depot 108.
  • the vehicle and driver status information for each vehicle 1 10 and driver includes a current available driving hours value for a driver of that vehicle 1 10, and the operations of block 308 above may include selecting dedicated vehicle fleet drivers with current available driving hours values that satisfy a predetermined threshold (e.g., that are greater than an available working hours threshold).
  • a predetermined threshold e.g., that are greater than an available working hours threshold
  • assignment of shipments among dedicated carrier fleets and common carrier fleets may include, at least in part, a cost minimization operation.
  • the cost minimization operation may be based on a cost model that provides an estimate of the resulting cost of the dedicated versus common carrier assignments and may, according to various implementations, have a dependence on direct costs, which may include the fixed cost of assigned assets.
  • cost may be important in some implementations, other factors such as time sensitivity, returning drivers to their home depot, and utilization of dedicated fleet resources may also be important. Additionally, in some implementations, fixed costs may be already established until the next (e.g., quarterly) reallocation cycle, which may reduce the effect of direct costs in the daily decision process for assignment of shipments.
  • a vehicle routing operation may be an operation in which shipping needs for a number of customers or clients are routed to be served by a fleet of vehicles.
  • Vehicle routing operations may be performed, in various implementations using constraints such as pickup and delivery time window constraints, constraints that increase the likelihood of backhauls (e.g., loads carried by a vehicle on a return trip), and/or other pickup and delivery constraints that help determine routes for transport demand between pickup and delivery locations.
  • pickups and deliveries may be constrained to be performed, based on customer requests or requirements, within a time window.
  • a client may require that each load has to be carried in a specific timeframe from a pickup location to a delivery location.
  • a vehicle control system as described herein may generate and apply constraints to ensure the client's requests are satisfied.
  • shipments may be distributed among a dedicated fleet and one or more common carrier fleet(s).
  • a vehicle control system implemented by a dedicated fleet control system is described herein that allows comparison of dedicated assets versus common carrier resources for specific routes in a distribution network in order to make the best assignment and routing decision using a single model.
  • a dedicated fleet control system such as dedicated fleet control system 104 of FIG. 1 may perform simultaneous route assignment and cost optimization operations using an example optimization model, labeled Model 1, that will now be described in connection with, for example, Tables 1 and 2 and FIG. 5.
  • Model 1 presents various terms that may be used in an example of an optimization model for simultaneous route assignment and cost optimization.
  • a new cost structure is utilized in the objective function of the model, and additional practical constraints are also applied to allow transportation providers to assign and route resources according to the decision factors that they value in practice.
  • nodes see, e.g., nodes 206 of FIG.
  • a first operation assigns a particular node 206 to be a home depot node for each dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10.
  • the home depot is a single location, two nodes (a departing node and a returning node) are assigned to the home depot for computational convenience and efficiency.
  • the first of these nodes (node 1) assigned to the home depot is utilized as the departing node, and the second node is assigned to the same home depot as the returning node (node 2).
  • Two nodes 206 one for pickup and one for delivery also characterize each load (see, e.g., loads 200 and 200P of FIG. 2). In this case, two loads 200 with the same pickup and delivery locations, in this implementation, will have four nodes 206 instead of two.
  • Set of all vehicles t ⁇ is the set of dedicated/private fleet and i3 ⁇ 4 is a set with one member representing all common/global carriers.
  • Working time is equal to all driving time, service time and waiting time between loads.
  • i origin node and j is destination
  • i pickup node and j is delivery node
  • Routes 204/208 may each be referred to as a set of paired nodes 206 labeled as which are used to define valid routes.
  • the following implementations of dedicated carrier constraints may be utilized for defining routes 204/208 in the Model 1 implementations:
  • routing assignments can sometimes be performed with a single carrier model (e.g., a private carrier, a dedicated carrier, or a common carrier), instead of a combination of carriers.
  • models that do allow selection of different types of carriers can be used and may utilize direct costs in determining routing and carrier assignments.
  • multi-objective or multi-criteria decision making methods may be utilized for multi-carrier selection processes to allow integration of other decision factors into the process.
  • Model 1 a particular cost model is provided that allows routing determinations and carrier assignments to be performed using a single objective model for carrier selection of routes.
  • the objective of the Model 1 model is minimization of cost, and thus both dedicated asset and common carrier cost may be considered in an objective function, which may be implemented for computation as follows:
  • Table 2 below is an overview of an assigned asset cost breakdown that may be used to determine costs within the Model 1 model. As shown, overall costs of dedicated assets in Table 2 are divided into three categories: fixed cost, travel fixed cost, and travel variable cost. Any or all of these costs may be calculated in real time based on, for example, real-time vehicle status information received from communications circuitry 150 of dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 as discussed herein. Table 2: Transportation cost components.
  • Equipment purchase e.g., Truck, Cost of road Fuel consumption trailer, etc.
  • Depreciation e.g., salvage
  • Number of stops Driver e.g., wage, benefits, etc.
  • Fixed costs may consist of all overhead (e.g., management costs, office costs, etc.) and capital investment (e.g., truck purchase costs, required business licenses and permits costs, insurance costs, etc.). Some part of maintenance activities may actually be fixed. For example, an oil change is often scheduled based on mileage or time, whichever comes first. Time-based maintenance costs may thus be considered in the fixed costs.
  • Travel costs can be divided into route-dependent and mileage-dependent components.
  • the route-dependent travel cost component may include costs such as road quality costs, traffic costs, toll costs, and an average number of stops cost.
  • the mileage-dependent portion may consist of costs such as fuel consumption costs, some proportion of driver salary costs, and distance related maintenance costs like tire costs and belt change costs.
  • Fixed costs may be different from the other two categories. For example, fixed costs may be constant regardless of how many dedicated carrier vehicles are being utilized, particularly in systems that allocate dedicated fleet resources to customers on a periodic basis. Accordingly, fixed costs for a dedicated carrier fleet may not be avoidable, whether or not the dedicated fleet vehicles are used to move shipments, and can thus be excluded from comparison between assigned assets and common carriers on a tactical level. However, it should be noted that fixed costs may still be considered in fleet sizing decisions (described in further detail below in connection with, for example, FIGS. 6 and 7) for deciding how many internal (dedicated) resources to allocate across parts of the network (e.g., to various dedicated fleets for various customers).
  • the fleet size is set in advance of the daily assignment decision (e.g., at an earlier periodic asset allocation).
  • the following Model 1 equations and related calculations may be used as part of a vehicle control system operation to help facilitate automated optimization using the fixed and variable costs described above in connection with Table 2.
  • a utilization element, « may be defined that numerically describes daily truck utilization for Model 1.
  • one suitable definition of daily truck utilization is:
  • a dedicated carrier fleet controller may charge customers all travel costs and a portion of fixed costs such that the customer's overall cost can be determined numerically as follows:
  • the Model 1 implementation may be used to more accurately reflect the realtime decision factors used in practice in the dedicated fleet versus common carrier assignment operations. These assignment operations using the Model 1 implementation (and/or other cost model implementations) may be performed by a dedicated fleet control system 104 and may also utilize model constraints (e.g., dedicated carrier constraints) for assigning and routing the dedicated fleets, as will now be discussed. In other implementations, some or all of the dedicated carrier constraints discussed below can also be utilized with other cost models, if desired.
  • model constraints e.g., dedicated carrier constraints
  • Routing of common carriers 132 is not a point of interest.
  • single load handling may be used for the common carrier without considering common carrier truck routing before picking up and after delivering a load.
  • Dedicated carrier constraints may include a fulfillment constraint that imposes that every order must fulfilled.
  • dedicated fleet control system 104 may be prevented from generating any shipping plan (e.g., a plan that includes assignments for shipments among a dedicated fleet 102 and a common carrier fleet 132, along with routes 204/208 for the dedicated fleet 102) that leaves any shipment order unfulfilled.
  • Home depot departure and return constraints may also be applied that require that every dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 must depart from its assigned home depot 108 (e.g., node 1 as departing node 206) and return to the same home depot 108 (e.g., node 2 as returning node 206).
  • an unutilized dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 may be represented by a vehicle having a route that includes travel from node 1 to 2, which means that truck has not left the home depot 108.
  • Home depot departure and return constraints may be implemented in the model, respectively, as follows:
  • a sum, over all dedicated carrier vehicles, of the selection factor, x ijk may be constrained to be equal to one for node 1.
  • a sum, over all dedicated carrier vehicles, of the selection factor, ⁇ may be constrained to be equal to one for node 2.
  • An additional constraint may prevent dedicated fleet vehicles from staying at any node 206 except for node 2 (i.e., the home depot 108) that is the final destination for all dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10.
  • node 2 i.e., the home depot 108
  • There are two types of routes addressed in this additional constraint one route is coming to node j from node i and the other route has to leave node j to another node h.
  • This additional constraint may be implemented numerically as a constraint that the difference over the following sums of selection factors, and 7 M, is zero for all nodes and all dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 as follows: , / ⁇ e N, VA: e v, (Equation 12)
  • a time window constraint may also be applied that ensures that all pickups and deliveries by dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 are performed within a predetermined time window.
  • the time window constraint may be a constraint that the difference between the time that a dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 visits a delivery node 206 is not later than pickup time at a pickup node 206 plus the drive time and service and wait time associated with the route between the pickup node and the delivery node, for all nodes except for the home depot.
  • the time window constraint may be implemented numerically as follows (where M may be chosen to be a sufficiently large number that ensures that the inequality is satisfied on arcs where x jjk is zero):
  • each node 206 may be visited only once for each vehicle for each route, thus the above time window constraint works properly for all pickup and delivery nodes 206.
  • home depot nodes 1 and 2 are the exceptions to this rule, and dedicated fleet vehicles may be allowed to follow routes that leave/arrive at these home depot nodes at different times within the time window, and thus a vehicle index for each of these two home depot nodes are provided, which are treated separately in a different constraint associated with a different time window (e.g., one day or one shift).
  • home depot visit times can be recorded for current, past, or proposed routes for home depot nodes 1,2 respectively as w u , w 2k .
  • w ]lc ,w 2k can be used to represent the home depot visit times for nodes 1 and 2 to allow these nodes to be visited multiple times within a delivery window without violating the above time window constraint.
  • Another group of dedicated carrier constraints not only accounts for travel, service and wait times, but also, when applied during vehicle routing and assignment operations, helps reduce or eliminate sub-tours for dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 by assigning a time to each visited node 206. If a first node 206 is visited once by a dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10, then a time s will be assigned to that node and, after departure of the dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 to another node 206, a positive travel time t will be added to that value s. Thus, a route that causes a dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 to return to the same node 206 will cause a contradiction that violates the constraint, thus preventing assignment of that route.
  • communications circuitry such as communications circuitry 150 of FIG. 1 may provide vehicle status information, including a time at which a node has been visited, to dedicated fleet control system 104 for updating constraints and corresponding (e.g., real time) updating of routes, if desired.
  • a suitable large M for the above time window constraint can be chosen such that a small M is avoided that might not fulfill the goal and very large M is avoided that may cause round out errors.
  • a maximum working time constraint may be applied that prevents, for any dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10, the working time for that vehicle from exceeding a predetermined threshold WT (e.g., a threshold of 14 hours or other company-based or regulatory threshold).
  • the maximum working time constraint may help ensure that no routes or assignments are selected that cause the difference between the home depot return time and the home depot departure time for any dedicated fleet vehicle to be larger than the working time threshold WT and may be implemented numerically as follows: w k - w 2k ⁇ WT , fk e v, (Equation 14)
  • Pick-up and delivery time constraints may be also applied that ensure that each shipment, whether by a dedicated fleet vehicle or a common carrier vehicle, is picked up after or at a pickup time and delivered at or before a delivery time.
  • the pick-up and delivery time constraints may be implemented numerically as follows:
  • Dedicated fleet control system 104 may operate to distribute and route each of a plurality of shipments among the vehicles of a dedicated vehicle fleet 102 and one or more common carrier fleets 132 by computing (e.g., nearly instantaneously) an overall cost to deliver all shipments, and simultaneously evaluating each dedicated carrier constraint, for tens, hundreds, thousands, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or more combinations of assignment distributions and dedicated vehicle routes to identify a shipment plan that contains dedicated fleet routes and dedicated/common carrier assignments that provide the lowest overall cost; all without scheduling any routes that violate any of the dedicated carrier constraints.
  • real-time vehicle and driver status information as discussed herein may be received from communications circuitry 150 of vehicles 1 10 and incorporated into the tens, hundreds, thousands, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or more combinations of assignment distributions and dedicated vehicle route evaluations in real time (e.g., at a time between the first evaluated route and assignment distribution evaluation and the last evaluated route and assignment distribution evaluation of a single vehicle routing and carrier assignment operation in one illustrative example).
  • a dedicated fleet control system can distribute a plurality of shipments among dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 and common carrier vehicles 134 for transportation of a plurality of shipments from respective pickup locations to respective delivery locations based on a determination of routes 204/208 for the dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 and a concurrent minimization of an overall cost of a resulting distribution using the common carrier constraints and the dedicated carrier constraints, in which the concurrent minimization of the overall cost of the resulting distribution may include a minimization based on a cost model that excludes fixed costs for the dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10.
  • FIG. 5 depicts a flow diagram of an example process for distributing a plurality of shipments among dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 and common carrier vehicles 132 using the Model 1 implementation described above (e.g., by performing a simultaneous routing operation and minimization of the overall cost of the resulting distribution may include a minimization based on a cost model that excludes fixed costs for the dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10), according to various aspects of the subject technology.
  • the various blocks of the example process of FIG. 5 are described herein with reference to the components and/or processes described herein.
  • the one or more of the blocks of the example process of FIG. 5 may be implemented, for example, by one or more processors, including, for example, server 1 14 of FIG.
  • one or more of the blocks may be implemented apart from other blocks, and by one or more different processors or controllers. Further for explanatory purposes, the blocks of the example process of FIG. 5 are described as occurring in serial, or linearly. However, multiple blocks of the example process of FIG. 5 may occur in parallel. In addition, the blocks of the example process of FIG. 5 need not be performed in the order shown and/or one or more of the blocks of the example process of FIG. 5 need not be performed.
  • shipment load and delivery node information may be obtained (e.g., by a dedicated fleet control system 104).
  • Shipment load information may include shipment orders received from a client or customer at dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • Delivery node information related to nodes such as nodes 206 of FIG. 2 may include various potential or actual delivery locations and/or home depot identification for each dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 as discussed herein.
  • driver and/or vehicle status information from dedicated fleet vehicle communications circuitry may be received.
  • Driver and/or vehicle status information may be received at the dedicated fleet control system 104. Because the driver and/or vehicle status information may be constantly changing, the vehicle communications circuitry can provide the driver and/or vehicle status information continuously or nearly continuously, in some implementations.
  • dedicated fleet information such as dedicated carrier constraints as discussed herein may be obtained by the dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • one or more of the dedicated carrier constraints may be generated by server 1 14 of dedicated fleet control system 104 based on the ever-changing received driver and/or vehicle status information.
  • control system 104 may receive identifier of a home depot 108 for one of the dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10.
  • Server 1 14 may then generate a constraint that the vehicle 1 10 depart from and return to the identified home depot within a period of time (e.g., each day).
  • dedicated carrier constraints that may be generated by server 1 14 include the time window constraint, working time constraint, pickup and delivery time constraints, and fulfillment constraint discussed above, any or all of which may be calculated, in real time, based on the ever-changing driver and/or vehicle status information.
  • dedicated fleet driver information such as a maximum working hours threshold, a maximum driving hours threshold, a current working hours value, and/or a current driving hours value may be obtained (e.g., received and/or generated) at the dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • some or all of the dedicated fleet driver information may be generated based on the received driver and/or vehicle status information.
  • the dedicated fleet driver information may be received in real time from communications circuitry 150 of a vehicle 1 10 for that driver.
  • dedicated fleet control system 104 may receive a real-time current working hours total from a dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 for a driver of that vehicle 1 10.
  • Server 1 14 may determine, based on the real-time current working hours total, a remaining available hours total for the driver (e.g., an available working hours value for the driver). Server 1 14 may then generate a dedicated carrier constraint that prevents assigning any shipments to the driver that would cause the driver to work beyond the remaining available hours total.
  • a cost model may be obtained by dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • the cost model may be generated at dedicated fleet control system 104 to include or exclude fixed costs as described herein in accordance with various implementations as desired.
  • common carrier information such as common carrier constraints as discussed herein may be obtained at the dedicated fleet control system 104 (e.g., over a network from a common carrier control system 130).
  • the dedicated fleet control system may distribute loads, each including one or more shipments from the shipment load information among the dedicated fleet 102 and the common carrier fleet 132 by simultaneously determining routes for the dedicated fleet and minimizing an overall cost of the resulting distribution based on the cost model, the nodes 206, the dedicated carrier information (e.g., dedicated carrier constraints), the status information, and the common carrier information (e.g., common carrier constraints).
  • the cost model may, for example, include the Model 1 cost model described herein.
  • any or all of the dedicated carrier information e.g., dedicated carrier constraints
  • the status information e.g., common carrier constraints
  • the common carrier information e.g., common carrier constraints
  • the cost model can change based on incoming, real-time, and constantly changing data.
  • the operations of block 512 may include adjusting and determining, in real time and without human intervention the distribution of loads based on the received data with sufficient speed (e.g., within hours, minutes, or seconds) that changes in the constantly changing data do not affect the resulting distribution.
  • a dedicated fleet control system can be provided that integrates vastly distributed and varied systems (e.g., distributed networked vehicles, servers, and other information sources) to provide a result that cannot be achieved merely by human effort.
  • dedicated carrier vehicles may be designated to a specific home depot (see, e.g., home depots 108 of FIG. 1) in one or more distribution networks.
  • delivery locations such as delivery nodes 206 may be assigned to a given home depot 108 using geographical zones such as US postal zip codes (e.g., based on a distance between the depot's zip code and zip codes in the network of potential delivery locations 206).
  • Zip code clustering may be performed to make the number of potential routes and carrier assignment distributions to be evaluated during each routing and assignment operation even smaller relative to unclustered assignment distribution operations.
  • dedicated fleet controllers that want their dedicated drivers to return home each night (e.g., controllers 104 that implement a home depot constraint on a daily basis)
  • zip code clustering can also be used for this consideration in addition to making the number of potential evaluations smaller relative to unclustered assignment distribution operations.
  • the zip code assignment process may begin by clustering zip codes in the distribution network into groups around a centralized home depot 108 based on time constraints. For example, this clustering can be set to ensure that a home depot 108 is within a certain coverage driving distance to deliver to a given destination 206 and return to the home depot 108 within a given time window (e.g., within a given day), if desired.
  • the result of this operation may form a dictionary that can be stored for future route assignment and carrier distribution runs, and thus may only be executed once for all zip codes (and not in every assignment/distribution run).
  • the zip code dictionary may be stored at the dedicated fleet control system (e.g., in storage or memory of server 1 14 of FIG. 1 or other local or remote storage).
  • the load may be qualified and considered for dedicated carrier selection. Otherwise, if at least one of the pickup or delivery zip codes is outside the cluster then the common carrier may be selected for the load. Thereby, all the loads assigned for dedicated carrier vehicles associated with a particular home depot 108 may have pickup and delivery locations clustered around, or within a range of, that home depot 108.
  • carrier assignment and routing operations may, in some implementations, include fixed costs and/or multi-objective models.
  • a fixed-cost multi-objective approach may increase the utilization of assigned fleet in comparison to single objective models (e.g., models that only consider costs, without any weighting toward utilization of dedicated carrier vehicles), but also separates the transportation mode assignment and routing decisions.
  • dedicated fleet preferences are considered in the model, which allows carrier selection to be addressed concurrent with the routing problem based on cost minimization in a single objective problem.
  • Model 1 The single objective model described above, which considers travel cost using the cost model described above, while excluding fixed costs, to compare carrier choices and solves routing at the same time as carrier selection.
  • Model 2 In the second single objective model, the fixed costs associated to each dedicated fleet truck are only added to vehicles that are selected for shipment deliveries. No additional multi-objective constraints may be added.
  • Model 3 adds various different weights for dedicated/private and common carrier assets for carrier selection operations. Assigning a higher weight to dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 can result in larger utilization for these vehicles 1 10. Weightings can be obtained by multi-criteria decision making tools like the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) or based on experience. In this example, a weighted sum multi- objective model may be used by assigning a priority of 2 to dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 relative to common carrier vehicles 134. As described below, Model 2 may result in underutilization of the dedicated/private fleet relative to Models 1 and 3. [0146] An overview of the comparison of Models 1, 2, and 3 is shown in Table 3 below.
  • Model 1 combines the decision making into a single model. It is shown that automating the process into a single optimization model may achieve efficiencies and cost reductions that multi-objective (weighting) process of Model 3 may not be able to consistently achieve, even based on expert judgment.
  • Model 1 An advantage of the subject technology, e.g., Model 1, may be that a high number of loads may be assigned to dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 due the cost structure (e.g., excluding fixed costs) being more representative of what is driving the actual decision in practice. Since the results of multi-objective models may incentivize post-optimization analysis, there may also some other indirect costs (e.g., engineering, time, etc.) that can be saved by utilizing Model 1.
  • Table 4 shows the number of dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 operated on each of eight days in a simulation based on each of the three models Model 1 , Model 2, and Model 3. The maximum number of vehicles operated on any given day, based on each implementation, are also listed.
  • a dedicated vehicle fleet 102 after operating, over a period of time, a dedicated vehicle fleet 102 based on an implementation of Models 1, 2, and 3, a fleet size for a dedicated fleet 102 may be determined based on the maximum number of vehicles operated over the period of time.
  • Table 4 Number of dedicated/private vehicles utilized by day.
  • FIG. 6 depicts a flow diagram of an example process for determining a dedicated fleet size based on the maximum number of vehicles operated over a period of time, according to various aspects of the subject technology.
  • the various blocks of the example process of FIG. 6 are described herein with reference to the components and/or processes described herein.
  • the one or more of the blocks of the example process of FIG. 6 may be implemented, for example, by one or more processors, including, for example, server 1 14 of FIG. 1 or one or more components or processors of server 1 14.
  • one or more of the blocks may be implemented apart from other blocks, and by one or more different processors or controllers.
  • fleet sizing operations by a dedicated fleet control system 104 may include, at block 600, distributing loads such as loads 200 and/or 200P of FIG. 2 among a dedicated fleet 102 and a common carrier 132.
  • the loads may be distributed by simultaneously (a) determining routes such as routes 204 and 208 for the dedicated fleet 102 and (b) minimizing an overall cost of the resulting distribution based on routing constraints, common carrier information, and a cost model that excludes fixed costs for the dedicated fleet over a period of time (e.g. over a week, over nine days, over a month, over a quarter, over a year, over a shipping season, etc.).
  • At least one of the dedicated carrier constraints may be determined in real time during the distributing of the plurality of loads.
  • the real-time determination may be performed, based on and while receiving the vehicle status information throughout the period of time.
  • the vehicle status information may be received by the dedicated fleet server 1 14 from communications circuitry 150 disposed in at least one vehicle 1 10 of the dedicated carrier fleet 102.
  • the dedicated carrier constraints may include a constraint that each vehicle 1 10 of the dedicated carrier fleet 102 depart from and return to a respective home depot each 108 day within a first predetermined window of time within the period of time.
  • the dedicated carrier constraints may include a constraint that each of the plurality of loads 200/200P be picked up from the corresponding pickup location for that load and delivered to the corresponding delivery location for that load within a time second window of time within the period of time.
  • the common carrier constraints can include an indication of a number of available common carrier vehicles 134 and associated common carrier costs for the second window of time and one or more routes associated with at least one of the plurality of loads.
  • fleet sizing operations may include, at block 602, determining a maximum number of dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 used (e.g., nine vehicles) within a predetermined window of time (e.g., on one day such as on day 3 in the example of Table 4) within the period of time (e.g., within the eight days in the example of Table 4), and at block 604, modifying the number of vehicles 1 10 in the dedicated fleet 102 based on the determined maximum number (e.g., by reducing the size of the dedicated fleet to 9 vehicles) for an upcoming additional period of time (e.g., for an upcoming week, an upcoming month, an upcoming quarter, an upcoming year, or an upcoming shipping season).
  • Reducing the total number of vehicles 1 10 in the dedicated vehicle fleet 102 may include moving at least one of the vehicles in the dedicated vehicle fleet to a different dedicated vehicle fleet that, for example, is dedicated to a different client of the dedicated fleet control system.
  • a dedicated fleet size may be determined based on historical data. However, in some circumstances, a dedicated fleet size may be determined based on projected data.
  • FIG. 7 depicts a flow diagram of an example process for determining a dedicated fleet size based on projected data, according to various aspects of the subject technology.
  • the various blocks of the example process of FIG. 7 are described herein with reference to the components and/or processes described herein.
  • the one or more of the blocks of the example process of FIG. 7 may be implemented, for example, by one or more processors, including, for example, server 1 14 of FIG. 1 or one or more components or processors of server 1 14. In some implementations, one or more of the blocks may be implemented apart from other blocks, and by one or more different processors or controllers.
  • the blocks of the example process of FIG. 7 are described as occurring in serial, or linearly. However, multiple blocks of the example process of FIG. 7 may occur in parallel.
  • the blocks of the example process of FIG. 7 need not be performed in the order shown and/or one or more of the blocks of the example process of FIG. 7 need not be performed.
  • known or expected load information, dedicated fleet information, dedicated fleet driver information, routing constraints, and common carrier information for a projected period of time may be obtained by a dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • the known or expected load information may include actual future shipment orders or projected shipment orders based on historical data.
  • a planned distribution of the known or expected loads over the projected period of time among a dedicated fleet 102 and a common carrier 132 may be determined by the dedicated fleet control system 104 by simultaneously determining routes such as routes 204 and 208 of FIG.
  • the planned distribution may be determined by performing the minimization described above in connection with Equation 8 and applying one or more of the constraints described above in connection with Equations 9-16.
  • a maximum number of dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 projected to be used in one day within the projected period of time may be determined by the dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • the number of vehicles 1 10 in the dedicated fleet 102 may be modified by the dedicated fleet control system 104 based on the determined maximum number. Modifying the number of vehicles 1 10 in the dedicated fleet 102 may include moving one or more vehicles 1 10 from the dedicated vehicle fleet 102 to another dedicated vehicle fleet (e.g., another dedicated fleet operated by the same control system 104 for another client), moving one or more vehicles 1 10 from another dedicated vehicle fleet to the dedicated vehicle fleet 102, purchasing additional vehicles 1 10 for the dedicated vehicle fleet, or selling dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 (as examples).
  • another dedicated vehicle fleet e.g., another dedicated fleet operated by the same control system 104 for another client
  • moving one or more vehicles 1 10 from another dedicated vehicle fleet to the dedicated vehicle fleet 102 e.g., purchasing additional vehicles 1 10 for the dedicated vehicle fleet, or selling dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 (as examples).
  • a pick-up and delivery time window may be associated with each load. Providing a higher flexibility in time windows may give more freedom in scheduling the dedicated vehicle fleet.
  • a flexibility factor %Flexibility may be applied to the time window as shown below:
  • the time window may, for example, be a maximum amount of allowable time between a pickup time and a delivery time for a particular load as described by the equation above.
  • the flexibility factor may be applied to the maximum allowable time difference between the pickup time and the delivery time as shown.
  • the flexibility factor may, for example, be a user-specified (e.g., customer specified) variability in the maximum allowable time difference that facilitates a reduction in size for the dedicated carrier fleet 102.
  • wider time frames e.g., with a larger flexibility factor
  • fewer dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 can be utilized to carry the same number of loads. In this condition, transportation providers such as a dedicated fleet control system 104 can dedicate fewer assets 1 10 to the customer without compromising quality of service.
  • Selecting a flexibility factor that relaxes the time window by a factor of twice the travel time may, for example, result in the number of assigned trucks 1 10 utilized being reduced by 30-40%.
  • Each truck may have a cost per day for maintenance, capital investment, overhead, etc. and reducing the number of assigned trucks may save the dedicated fleet 102 in contrast to 0% flexibility. This may raise an opportunity to consider wider and more flexible time windows in dedicated fleet contracts, and shows that while the assignment of routes to common carriers 132 influences costs, there are also other opportunities to reduce cost by influencing time windows desired by customers.
  • Model 1 implementation and the summary results presented above provide advantages for operation of distributed vehicle fleets as discussed below including resulting opportunities to improve the tactical decision-making process of assigning and routing different types of transportation resources on a daily basis.
  • cost models that rely on direct costs may not accurately reflect how private and dedicated transportation providers accrue costs when they are periodically assigning resources to customers or depots.
  • a periodic allocation process can make the fixed cost of assigned resources almost a sunk cost that is going to be incurred regardless of the trucks actually being utilized after the assignment decision.
  • the cost model of Model 1 of this disclosure may be a more authentic reflection of how these organizations may desire to base the dedicated resource versus common carrier assignment and routing decision in practice.
  • VROs are provided that allow comparison of assigned versus common carrier resources for specific routes within time windows in a distribution network.
  • This tool that can be used by practitioners to assign and route a mixture of private or dedicated fleets with common carriers in a manner that reflects the decisionmaking criteria they value has numerous advantages.
  • One advantage is a reduction or elimination of the gap between automated assignments and desired results that may create an incentive to manually intervene in the performance the automated assignments. In some scenarios, these manual interventions could be incentivized to be performed multiple times per day. Further, relying on decision processes that require or even incentivize manual intervention or other multi-objective processes can greatly inhibit the efficiency and many times the effectiveness of the assignment and routing process in comparison with the real-time simultaneous routing assignment and cost minimization operations described in connection with Model 1.
  • the Model 1 implementation provides a single objective model that considers cost in a consistent manner to real-world technological and other pressures to make the assignment and routing decisions along with a set of constraints that integrates to properly control a dedicated fleet. In addition to savings on a transportation network, this model can also save transportation managers considerable employee time that is required to manually impose preferences for assigned resources versus common carriers for shipments in a distribution network.
  • This disclosure provides a commercial tool that works within an existing networked transportation management system to automate and improve the assignment and routing decision for providers that utilize a mixture of assigned assets and common carriers.
  • evaluating the potential of a backhaul on a specific route may provide additional efficiencies in operating the dedicated fleet.
  • a backhaul probability may be a probability, for each fleet vehicle, of carrying a load or shipment on a return portion of a route.
  • Applying backhaul probability constraints may be implemented by storing, at the dedicated fleet control system server, a separate dictionary of backhaul probabilities by route to include in the formulation of the model.
  • a dedicated fleet control system may receive a shipment plan referencing one or more shipments associated with shipment carriers.
  • the shipment plan may include a route for each dedicated fleet vehicle to be operated and an assignment either to a dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 or a common carrier 132 for each shipment.
  • the shipment plan may be implemented as a group of data fields pertaining to one or more shipments.
  • the shipment plan may be stored at the dedicated fleet server 1 14.
  • an initial shipment plan may be received from a transportation management application operated by a shipping carrier.
  • the shipment carriers referenced in the shipment plan may include at least one common carrier fleet 132 and at least one dedicated fleet 102 (see, e.g., FIG. 1).
  • the dedicated fleet 102 may be owned or operated by a shipment customer or client and may be controlled by dedicated fleet control system 104.
  • One or more realtime constraints associated with the one or more shipment carriers included in the shipment plan may then be determined.
  • the constraints can include one or more of: driver hours of service (e.g., based on real-time driver status information received from communications circuitry 150), dedicated fleet equipment availability(e.g., based on realtime vehicle status information received from communications circuitry 150), backhaul loads or shipments (e.g., based on real-time vehicle status information received from communications circuitry 150), the dedicated fleet's fixed cost and the dedicated fleet's shipment cost, or the common carrier fleet's shipment cost.
  • the driver hours of service can reflect driver availability to service the shipment and may be updated (e.g., in real time) as status information is received at the dedicated fleet control system 104 from communications circuitry 150.
  • the dedicated fleet's fixed cost may be a cost that the owner or operator of the dedicated fleet 102 pays to keep or maintain the fleet.
  • the shipment costs for the dedicated fleet 102 and the shipment costs for the common carrier fleet 132 may be based on their respective lane rates, which may include both fixed costs and variable costs. In some cases, the common carrier fleet's shipment costs may be less than the dedicated fleet's shipment costs (or vice versa).
  • the disclosed implementations may generate an updated shipment plan based on selectively assigning the one or more shipments to the dedicated fleet 102 or the common carrier fleet 132 based on the determined constraints. Shipping customers may use the updated plan to achieve a more efficient and cost effective operation.
  • FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating example architecture for vehicle fleet control.
  • Local carrier server 880 e.g., an implementation of server 1 14 of dedicated fleet control system 104 or an implementation of server 140 of common carrier control system 130
  • Memory 820 may include operations analyzer 832, preliminary plan generator 834, and plan optimizer 836 in some implementations that perform operations associated with Model 3.
  • Memory 820 may include a shipment assignment application such as route controller and cost optimizer 800 configured to simultaneously determine routes such as routes 204 and 208 of FIG.
  • Memory 820 may also include fleet size optimizer application 802 configured to generate modifications to the size of dedicated carrier fleet 102 based on projected information and/or past fleet operations based on outputs from route controller and cost optimizer 800.
  • Local carrier server 880 may also communicate with remote carrier server 891 (e.g., an implementation of common carrier server 140 or server 1 14), dedicated fleet vehicles 892 (e.g., one or more of vehicles 1 10 of FIG. 1), and/or a client device such as client computing device 890.
  • remote carrier server 891 e.g., an implementation of common carrier server 140 or server 1 14
  • dedicated fleet vehicles 892 e.g., one or more of vehicles 1 10 of FIG. 1
  • client device such as client computing device 890.
  • shipping orders may be received at server 880 from client computing device 890.
  • communications circuitry 150 of dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 may periodically, continually, or otherwise provide vehicle and/or driver status updates to communications module 818 during delivery operations, while driving, while idling, and/or while turned off between, after, and/or before delivery operations.
  • communications circuitry 150 of a particular dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 may electronically transmit (e.g., via a cellular data network) a real-time working hours value for a driver of that vehicle to communications module 818 that indicates an amount of time that the driver has been working during a current shift, during a current week, during a current month, or during a current year.
  • communications circuitry 150 of a particular dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 may electronically transmit (e.g., via a cellular data network) a real-time driving hours value for a driver of that vehicle to communications module 818 that indicates an amount of time that the driver has been driving the vehicle during a current shift, during a current week, during a current month, or during a current year.
  • Local carrier server 880 may, during shipment assignment operations generate dedicated carrier constraints that prevent assignments to that driver that would cause the driver's working hours and/or driving hours to exceed a threshold such as a threshold determined by a regulation such as a union regulation, a company, a state regulation, or a federal regulation.
  • a threshold such as a threshold determined by a regulation such as a union regulation, a company, a state regulation, or a federal regulation.
  • communications circuitry 150 of a particular dedicated fleet vehicle 1 10 may electronically transmit (e.g., via a cellular data network) real-time vehicle status information for that vehicle to communications module 818.
  • the real-time vehicle information may include a location of the vehicle, a speed of the vehicle, a fuel level of the vehicle, a maintenance reminder for the vehicle, a maintenance alert for the vehicle, a distance travelled during a particular period of time (e.g., a day, a driver shift, a week, a month, a year, or a vehicle lifetime), and/or other vehicle status information.
  • the vehicle maintenance reminder may include, for example, a service due reminder for one or more services (e.g., an oil change or inspection, a belt change or inspection, a brake fluid change or inspection, a brake pad change or inspection, a transmission fluid change or inspection, a tire rotation, change or inspection, or the like).
  • a service due reminder for one or more services e.g., an oil change or inspection, a belt change or inspection, a brake fluid change or inspection, a brake pad change or inspection, a transmission fluid change or inspection, a tire rotation, change or inspection, or the like.
  • the vehicle maintenance alert may include a driver detected or automatically detected problem with the vehicle.
  • an automated tire-pressure monitor may determine that one or more of the vehicle's tires are low on air or have lost air pressure.
  • communications circuitry 150 in that vehicle may send an alert to communications module 818 that the vehicle's tires are low on air or have lost air pressure.
  • communications circuitry 150 may provide vehicle maintenance alerts or other alerts to communications module 818 related to events such as an air bag sensor-detected air bag deployment, an accelerometer or pressure sensor detected collision, a fuel sensor-detected fuel leak or other vehicle-sensor detected events.
  • Local carrier server 880 may generate various dedicated carrier constraints related to the vehicle and driver status information received by communications module 818 from communications circuitry 150 as described herein.
  • local carrier server 880 includes one or more modules for facilitating user interaction via a browser, web application or a special purpose application executing on client computing device 890.
  • Local carrier server 880 may be implemented as a single machine with a single processor, a multi-processor machine, or a server farm including multiple machines with multiple processors (as examples).
  • Communication module 818 can enable server 880 to send data to client computing device 890 and/or other remote systems.
  • Client computing device 890 can be a laptop computer, a desktop computer, a mobile phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a tablet computer, a netbook, a monitor with one or more processors embedded therein or coupled thereto, a physical machine, or a virtual machine.
  • Client computing device 890 may include one or more of a keyboard, a mouse, a display, or a touch screen.
  • Client computing device 890 can include a browser or any web application configured to display webpages or any web content.
  • client computing device 890 may include special-purpose applications (e.g., mobile phone or tablet computer applications) for accessing and displaying content.
  • server 880, remote carrier server 891, dedicated fleet vehicles 892, and/or client computing device 890 can communicate with one another via network 870.
  • Network 870 may include the Internet, an intranet, a local area network, a wide area network, a wired network, a wireless network, or a virtual private network (VPN). While only one server 880 is illustrated, the subject technology may be implemented in conjunction with any number of servers 880 and client computing devices 390. In some non-limiting implementations, a plurality of servers may implement the functions of server 380 and other components illustrated in FIG. 8.
  • memory 820 of server 880 can include operations analyzer 832, preliminary plan generator 834, plan optimizer 836.
  • Server 880 may also communicate with other external databases such as cloud storage.
  • FIG. 9 illustrates an example view of different operational stages in operations analyzer 832 in greater detail.
  • Stage 904 is an example operation to determine driver available hours of service (HOS).
  • operations analyzer 832 assesses both the common carrier fleet and the private or dedicated fleet.
  • a common carrier fleet operator or a dedicated fleet operator
  • a particular planning horizon e.g., 1 day, 1 week, etc.
  • the extracted data may then be validated and submitted for storage, for example, via a web-based application or a web portal associated with a transportation management application (stage 906).
  • a dedicated fleet operator (or a common carrier fleet operator) may determine driver HOS for the planning horizon (stage 908) and may enter the driver HOS into the web-based application and/or receive and/or update the driver HOS based on previously received or real-time status information received from vehicle communications circuitry 150 (stage 910) or extract from a Fleet Management System.
  • Operations analyzer 832 may then store a combined driver HOS schedule into storage 826 or another remote database (stage 912).
  • Stage 916 is an example operational process to determine daily asset (e.g., truck, vehicle, etc.) availability.
  • stage 916 may be performed by operations analyzer 832 in parallel with stage 904.
  • Stage 916 may include one or more substages.
  • operations analyzer 832 may display available assets for a day. The assets for a day may be generated based on a scheduled return to domicile (or a point of shipment origin) and/or based on previously received or real-time status information received from vehicle communications circuitry 150.
  • the available asset count may then be confirmed by the operations analyzer (stage 918).
  • the available asset count may be confirmed via the web-based application or web portal described above.
  • the confirmed asset availability may then be sent to preliminary plan generator 834 (stage 920).
  • the confirmed asset availability may be provided as a database table (e.g., a carrier capacity table) including one or more rows and columns identifying assets and their respective availability.
  • the carrier capacity table may be provided by updating one or more existing tables in a database of preliminary plan generator 834 or a common database of preliminary plan generator 834 and operations analyzer 832, sending one or more new carrier capacity tables to a database of preliminary plan generator 834 or a common database of preliminary plan generator 834 and operations analyzer 832, or sending one or more files containing the carrier capacity table to the preliminary plan generator.
  • Stage 924 is an operational process that generates lane rate pricing.
  • stage 924 may include one or more sub-stages.
  • operations analyzer 832 may generate fleet lane rates (e.g., a flat lane rate or a cost per mile for movement of a load along a particular route 204/208).
  • Lane rates may be generated (e.g., in real time) based on asset availability, shipment order volume, or other external factors such as fuel prices, road conditions, etc.
  • the generated rates can then populated to a tariff template that may be provided to or imported by the preliminary plan generator 834 for use in the calculations of the cost for various shipping plans.
  • FIG. 10 illustrates preliminary plan generator 834 in greater detail according to some implementations.
  • preliminary plan generator 834 may perform one or more pre-planning activities 1002 that may include receiving (or activating) one or more fleet lane rates (stage 1004) for routes such as routes 204 and 208 of FIG. 2.
  • the fleet lane rates may be received from stage 926 of the operations analyzer 832 discussed above with reference to FIG. 8.
  • Carrier capacity tables may be updated by the preliminary plan generator 834 based on confirmed asset availability determined by operations analyzer 832 in stage 920.
  • Preliminary plan generator 834 may then start the planning process 1006.
  • preliminary plan generator 834 may select one or more shipments for optimization (stage 1008).
  • the shipments may include previously built loads or shipments such as loads/shipments 200/200P of FIG. 2.
  • the previously built loads or shipments may be individual shipments that form a full load or groups of shipments scheduled for transportation between common locations based on a received shipment order.
  • Preliminary plan generator 834 may then initiate an optimization process to select assets (e.g., dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 and/or common carrier vehicles 134) associated with lowest lane rates (stage 1010).
  • preliminary plan generator 834 may, in real time, optimize a shipping plan using lane rates for routes 204/208 as a metric (stage 1010).
  • preliminary plan generator 834 may evaluate, periodically or in real time, ideal consolidations of shipments as well as modal and carrier assignments.
  • Fleet capacity considerations for the optimization may be managed through carrier specific equipment constraints (e.g., one or more constraints as described above in connection with Equations 9-16) applied within preliminary plan generator 834 (e.g., for shipping days in the future).
  • preliminary plan generator 834 may correct the un-routable shipments and select the corrected shipments for re-optimization (stage 1018). If it is determined that there are no un-routable shipments (stage 1014), preliminary plan generator 834 can generate a preliminary shipping plan (stage 1016).
  • the preliminary plan may have a table format (e.g., a database table).
  • the database table may include in one or more rows and columns of shipment origin information, customer name, customer code, city name, state name, zip code, distance between origin and destination node 206, transit time between origin and destination nodes 206, destination zip code, shipment characteristics, freight class special handling requirements, assigned carrier (e.g., dedicated carrier 102 or common carrier 132), lane rates for each available carrier, etc.
  • the preliminary plan can indicate a mapping between orders and one or more carriers (e.g., dedicated carrier 102 or common carrier 132).
  • the one or more carriers e.g., dedicated carrier 102 or common carrier 132 may be selected based on the lowest lane rate while fulfilling shipment characteristics and/or various dedicated carrier constraints and common carrier constraints.
  • plan optimizer 836 receives (e.g., from stage 1016) a shipment plan referencing one or more shipments 200/200P associated with shipment carriers (e.g., dedicated carrier 102 or common carrier 132).
  • shipment carriers e.g., dedicated carrier 102 or common carrier 1302.
  • the shipment carriers can include at least one common carrier fleet 132 and at least one dedicated fleet 102.
  • Plan optimizer 836 can determine (e.g., in real time) one or more constraints associated with the one or more shipment carriers included in the shipment plan, where the constraints include one or more of: driver hours of service, the dedicated fleet equipment availability, backhaul loads or shipments, the dedicated fleet's fixed cost and the dedicated fleet's shipment cost, or the common carrier fleet's shipment cost, where the dedicated fleet's shipment cost and the common carrier fleet's shipment cost are based on their respective lane rates.
  • Plan optimizer 836 may then generate, by performing some or all of the operations described below in connection with FIG. 1 1, an updated shipment plan based on selectively assigning the one or more shipments to the dedicated fleet or the common carrier fleet based on the determined constraints in real time while updating and/or receiving updated status information for the dedicated vehicle fleet and/or the common carrier fleet.
  • plan optimizer 836 computes a cost comparison between a shipment with a common carrier fleet 132 versus the dedicated fleet 102. For example, if the common carrier fleet rate (e.g., $ 1000) is less than the dedicated fleet rate (e.g. $1200), the preliminary plan generator (934) would choose the common carrier as the lowest lane rate option. Plan optimizer 836 may compute and choose the carrier with the lowest penalty cost. However, as described in further detail below in connection with FIG. 1 1 , in some implementations, two different penalty costs may be computed and/or compared.
  • the first penalty cost can be derived by comparing the common carrier fleet lane rate (e.g., $1000) and the dedicated fleet lane rate (e.g., $ 1200) to compute a first penalty cost (e.g., $200), that may be incurred if, for example, the plan optimizer assigned a particular shipment or load to the dedicated fleet.
  • a second penalty cost may be derived by first adding the common carrier fleet lane rate (e.g., $1000) and the fixed cost portion of the dedicated fleet lane rate (e.g., $500) to derive a total cost (e.g., $1500) that may be incurred if, for example, the plan optimizer assigned the particular shipment or load to the common carrier.
  • the total cost (e.g., $ 1500) may be compared to the dedicated fleet lane rate (e.g., $1200) to derive a second penalty cost (e.g., $300) that may be incurred if, for example, the plan optimizer assigned the particular shipment or load to the common carrier.
  • the plan optimizer 836 may then perform the selective assignment based on a comparison of the first penalty cost and the second penalty cost.
  • plan optimizer 836 may compare the first penalty cost to the second penalty cost and when it its determined that the first penalty cost is lower than the second penalty cost, keep the shipment assigned to the dedicated fleet. In some implementations, plan optimizer 836 may compare the first penalty cost to the second penalty cost, and when it its determined that the first penalty cost is higher than the second penalty cost, assign the shipment to the common carrier fleet.
  • plan optimizer 836 provides the updated shipment plan to a shipment tendering system.
  • the shipment tendering system negotiates one or more tenders to assign the shipment to the common carrier.
  • Plan optimizer 836 may also provide the updated shipment plan to a fleet management system for assignment to the dedicated fleet.
  • Plan optimizer 836 or operations analyzer 832 may then execute the updated shipment plan, where the execution includes transmitting one or more notifications to drivers, the notifications including instructions regarding the shipments.
  • FIG. 1 1 illustrates plan optimizer 836 in greater detail.
  • plan optimizer 836 may operate in three parallel phases A, B and C.
  • operations associated with each of phases A, B, and C may be performed concurrently such that feedback from the operations of one or more of phases A, B, and C may be provided into the operations of any other of the phases A, B, and C to inform those operations and modify, in real time, the assignments between the dedicated and common carriers.
  • the phases A, B, and C, and/or their component parts may be performed in real time and without user intervention.
  • This parallel operation can be particularly useful in incorporating real-time information received from one or more of the dedicated fleet vehicles 1 10 during the operations of phases A, B, and C.
  • phase A plan optimizer 836 reviews shipments that have been assigned to a fleet and reviews fleet hours of service (e.g., based on real-time updated vehicle status information received from communications circuitry 150 of each of vehicles 1 10) to ensure that loads are not overcommitted with regard to driver HOS even as the driver HOS evolves during shipping operations.
  • phase B determines whether a particular shipment can stay assigned to a dedicated fleet or whether it may need to be shifted to a common carrier fleet (or vice versa).
  • Phase C makes a determination of what assets (e.g., vehicles) are available (e.g., based on real-time updated vehicle status information received from communications circuitry 150 of each of vehicles 1 10) and provides the determination to Phase B.
  • Assets e.g., vehicles
  • Real-time updated information e.g., vehicle and/or driver status information
  • server 1 14 can be incorporated in real time and without user intervention, during the operations of any or all of phases A, B, and/or C.
  • plan optimizer 836 may query, receive or read the preliminary plan shipments and assets generated by preliminary plan generator 834 (stage 1 102). In Phase A, which begins with stage 1 104, plan optimizer 836 calculates transit hours and stop hours for each load or shipment based on shipment scheduled dates (stage 1 104). Plan optimizer 836 may then store the calculated total in a database (e.g., storage 826) as, for example, load hours of service (HOS) (stage 1 106). Driver available hours of service by domicile, or by day may be queried (stage 1 108) within a planning horizon (stage 1 1 10) or may be received, in real time from communications circuitry 150 of each of vehicles 1 10.
  • a database e.g., storage 826) as, for example, load hours of service (HOS) (stage 1 106).
  • HOS load hours of service
  • Driver available hours of service by domicile, or by day may be queried (stage 1 108) within a planning horizon (stage 1 1 10) or may be received, in real time from communications circuitry
  • a reference value of A may be assigned (stage 1 1 12).
  • the reference value A may represent a load that a fleet does not have adequate hours of service to execute.
  • plan optimizer 836 may rerate the loads to a lowest or least cost carrier via an application programming interface (API) associated with the preliminary plan generator 834 (stage 1 1 14). Plan optimizer 836 may then commit the load to the lowest or least cost carrier (stage 1 1 16). Additionally, plan optimizer 836 may change the reference value of A (assigned in stage 1 1 12) to a value that may be "ExFleetLdNoHOS" and may also refresh a value of driver HOS.
  • API application programming interface
  • plan optimizer 836 rerates each load via a preliminary plan generator 834 API to an alternative carrier type (or moved from dedicated fleet to common carrier or vice versa) (stage 1 1 18).
  • this rerated cost may be defined as "AltCostA.”
  • plan optimizer 836 compares "AltCostA” to an analogous cost generated by preliminary plan generator 834 and stores a difference (or delta) between these costs.
  • the difference value may be defined as "AltCostDelta.”
  • plan optimizer 836 may evaluate the previously computed "AltCostDelta” to a previously defined fleet fixed cost per vehicle asset per day (e.g., "FleetFixedCost"). Then, for loads or shipments where "AltCostDelta" is less than “FleetFixedCost," plan optimizer 836 may assign a reference value of "B" (stage 1 124).
  • Reference value B may represent a load that when assigned to a dedicated fleet would have less financial impact than allowing the dedicated fleet asset to sit idle and paying for a fixed cost associated with the dedicated fleet asset. Reference value B may sometimes be assigned based at least in part on real-time update information from communications circuitry 150 of each of vehicles 1 10 related to dedicated fleet driver and/or vehicle availability. Plan optimizer 836 may then query any load that is referenced by a reference value or "B" and "C" (stage 1 126). In stage 1 128, plan optimizer 836 may order loads by a least value of "AltCostDelta.”
  • plan optimizer 836 generates a ranking of loads or shipments that may be moved from a dedicated fleet to a common carrier fleet based in part, for example, on real-time updated status information from communications circuitry 150 of each of vehicles 1 10.
  • Plan optimizer 836 may proceed by evaluating each ranked load with consideration to real-time updated driver HOS to prevent a load from being assigned to a driver without HOS available (stage 1 130).
  • Stage 1 130 may also receive input from stage 1 1 16 from Phase A of plan optimizer 836.
  • Plan optimizer 836 may then commit each load to a fleet that have driver HOS available and change the reference value from "B" to "ExCCChangeToFleet" (stage 1 130) and the planning process may end (stage 1 132).
  • One or more or all of the foregoing operations may be performed without user intervention in real time with respect to each other and other phases or component parts thereof.
  • plan optimizer 836 may query available capacity of a dedicated fleet by day for each day for the planning horizon and/or may receive real-time updated vehicle and driver status information from communications circuitry 150 of each of vehicles 1 10 (stage 1 134). Plan optimizer 836 may then compare a number of loads assigned to a dedicated fleet against the fleet's available capacity for each day as determined based on the real-time updated vehicle and driver status information (stage 1 136). Plan optimizer 836 may then assign a reference value of "C" to each non-fleet load scheduled on a day where a total load count on a fleet may be less than an available capacity (stage 1 138).
  • Reference value C may reference a load that may be eligible for consideration of change to a dedicated fleet asset in order to maximize dedicated fleet performance.
  • the output of stage 1 138 may be provided by plan optimizer 836 to stage 1 126 of phase B as a part of the planning process.
  • One or more or all of the foregoing operations may be performed without user intervention in real time with respect to each other and other phases or component parts thereof.
  • storage 826 may communicate with plan optimizer 836.
  • Storage 826 may also communicate with preliminary plan generator 834 and operations analyzer 832.
  • plan optimizer 836 may store data gathered during the optimization process performed by plan optimizer 836.
  • This data may include, but is not limited to (i) Daily Driver Hours of Service (e.g., the number of hours of service provided by each driver of each vehicle on each day as determined from the real-time updated vehicle and driver status information), (ii) Load - Hours of Service Required (e.g., a number of hours a driver spent picking up and delivering each load), (iii) Alternative cost solution (common carrier or dedicated fleet) for every load (e.g., a cost for each load had the other of the common carrier or dedicated fleet been used instead of the one of the common carrier or dedicated fleet that was actually used), (iv) Difference of cost between common carrier and fleet for all loads (e.g., a cost difference between use of the common carrier or dedicated fleet for each load regardless of which of the common carrier or dedicated fleet was actually used), (v) Total available physical assets by day by domicile (e.g., a total number of dedicated fleet vehicles that was available on each day during a period of time, categorized by home depot), (vi) Designation of loads that
  • server 880 may generate new analytics data based on an analysis of stored historical data.
  • the analytics may be used to inform future fleet sizing decisions and/or to generate additional dedicated fleet constraints that can be applied to generate a more desirable distribution of assignments.
  • the new analytics data may include (a) Daily Driver Utilization (e.g., one or more summary charts or metric values describing the utilization of each driver each day), (b) Daily Asset Utilization (e.g., one or more summary charts or metric values describing the utilization of each vehicle each day), (c) Savings - Generated by dedicated fleet or common carrier (e.g., one or more summary charts or metric values describing the cost savings generated by the use of the dedicated fleet or the common carrier fleet over a period of time), (d) Lost opportunity of under-utilization of fleet (e.g., one or more summary charts or metric values describing a cost associated with dedicated fleet vehicles that were not operated within a given period of time), (e) Measurement of baseline engineering against actual execution (e.g., one or more summary charts
  • a method may include receiving, via an electronic network such as network 870 of FIG. 8 by one or more computing devices (e.g., server 1 14) operated at a dedicated carrier, a shipment plan referencing one or more shipments associated with shipment carriers.
  • the shipment carriers may include at least one common carrier fleet 132 operated by a common carrier and at least one dedicated fleet 102 operated by the dedicated carrier.
  • the shipment plan may include respective lane rates for the common carrier fleet 132 and the dedicated fleet 102 as described above in connection with, for example, stages 924 and 926 of FIG. 9.
  • the method may also include determining, by the one or more computing devices (e.g., server 1 14), one or more real-time constraints (e.g., one or more dedicated carrier constraints as described above in connection with Equations 1 -9) associated with the one or more shipment carriers included in the shipment plan.
  • the method may also include selectively assigning, by the one or more computing devices in real-time with the determining and without user intervention, the one or more shipments to the dedicated fleet 102 or the common carrier fleet 132 based on the determined one or more real-time constraints and based on the dedicated fleet's shipment cost, the dedicated fleet's fixed cost for operating the dedicated fleet 102, and the common carrier fleet's shipment cost.
  • the dedicated fleet's shipment cost and the common carrier fleet's shipment cost may be based on their respective lane rates.
  • the method may also include generating in real time, from the received shipment plan without user intervention, an updated shipment plan based on the selective assignment of the one or more shipments and providing, via the electronic network without user intervention, the updated shipment plan to a fleet management system.
  • determining the real-time constraints may include extracting, from one or more fleet management systems without user intervention, realtime parameters such as driver hours of service (HOS) for the at least one common carrier fleet 132 and the at least one dedicated fleet 102 for a planning horizon associated with the one or more shipments. Determining the real-time constrains may also include determining, in response to the extracting without user intervention, whether the driver HOS for at least one of the shipment carriers is overcommitted. The assigning of the one or more shipments may be based on whether the driver HOS for the at least one of the shipment carriers is overcommitted.
  • HOS driver hours of service
  • the method may also include executing, by the one or more computing devices (e.g., server 1 14) without user intervention, the updated shipment plan, where the execution includes transmitting one or more notifications to drivers, the notifications including instructions (e.g., routes such as routes 204 or 208) regarding the one or more shipments.
  • the one or more computing devices e.g., server 1 14
  • the execution includes transmitting one or more notifications to drivers, the notifications including instructions (e.g., routes such as routes 204 or 208) regarding the one or more shipments.
  • server 880 may be implemented using hardware or a combination of software and hardware, either in a dedicated server, or integrated into another entity, or distributed across multiple entities.
  • Server 880 includes a bus 824 or other communication mechanism for communicating information, and processor 812 coupled with bus 824 for processing information.
  • Processor 812 may be a general-purpose microprocessor, a microcontroller, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a Programmable Logic Device (PLD), a controller, a state machine, gated logic, discrete hardware components, or any other suitable entity that can perform calculations or other manipulations of information.
  • DSP Digital Signal Processor
  • ASIC Application Specific Integrated Circuit
  • FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array
  • PLD Programmable Logic Device
  • Server 880 can include, in addition to hardware, code that creates an execution environment for the computer program in question, e.g., code that constitutes processor firmware, a protocol stack, a database management system, an operating system, or a combination of one or more of them stored in memory 820.
  • Memory 820 may include Random Access Memory (RAM), a flash memory, a Read Only Memory (ROM), a Programmable Read-Only Memory (PROM), an Erasable PROM (EPROM), registers, a hard disk, a removable disk, a CD-ROM, a DVD, or any other suitable storage device, coupled to bus 824 for storing information and instructions to be executed by processor 812.
  • the processor 812 and the memory 820 can be supplemented by, or incorporated in, special purpose logic circuitry.
  • the instructions may be stored in the memory 820 and implemented in one or more computer program products, i.e., one or more modules of computer program instructions encoded on a computer readable medium for execution by, or to control the operation of, the server 880, and according to any method well known to those of skill in the art, including, but not limited to, computer languages such as data-oriented languages (e.g., SQL, dBase), system languages (e.g., C, Objective-C, C++, Assembly), architectural languages (e.g., Java, .NET), and application languages (e.g., PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python).
  • data-oriented languages e.g., SQL, dBase
  • system languages e.g., C, Objective-C, C++, Assembly
  • architectural languages e.g., Java, .NET
  • application languages e.g., PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python.
  • Instructions may also be implemented in computer languages such as array languages, aspect-oriented languages, assembly languages, authoring languages, command line interface languages, compiled languages, concurrent languages, curly- bracket languages, dataflow languages, data-structured languages, declarative languages, esoteric languages, extension languages, fourth-generation languages, functional languages, interactive mode languages, interpreted languages, iterative languages, list- based languages, little languages, logic-based languages, machine languages, macro languages, metaprogramming languages, multiparadigm languages, numerical analysis, non-English-based languages, object-oriented class-based languages, object-oriented prototype-based languages, off-side rule languages, procedural languages, reflective languages, rule-based languages, scripting languages, stack-based languages, synchronous languages, syntax handling languages, visual languages, wirth languages, embeddable languages, and xml-based languages.
  • Memory 820 may also be used for storing temporary variable or other intermediate information during execution of instructions to be executed by processor 812.
  • a computer program as discussed herein does not necessarily correspond to a file in a file system.
  • a program can be stored in a portion of a file that holds other programs or data (e.g., one or more scripts stored in a markup language document), in a single file dedicated to the program in question, or in multiple coordinated files (e.g., files that store one or more modules, subprograms, or portions of code).
  • a computer program can be deployed to be executed on one computer or on multiple computers that are located at one site or distributed across multiple sites and interconnected by a communication network.
  • the processes and logic flows described in this specification can be performed by one or more programmable processors executing one or more computer programs to perform functions by operating on input data and generating output.
  • Server 880 further includes a data storage device 826 such as a magnetic disk or optical disk, coupled to bus 824 for storing information and instructions. Server 880 may be coupled via input/output module 828 to various devices.
  • the input/output module 828 can be any input/output module.
  • Example input/output modules 828 include data ports such as USB ports.
  • the input/output module 828 is configured to connect to a communications module 818.
  • Example communications modules 818 include networking interface cards, such as Ethernet cards and modems.
  • the input/output module 828 is configured to connect to a plurality of devices, such as an input device 816 and/or an output device 814.
  • Example input devices 816 include a keyboard and a pointing device, e.g., a mouse or a trackball, by which a user can provide input to the server 880.
  • Other kinds of input devices 816 can be used to provide for interaction with a user as well, such as a tactile input device, visual input device, audio input device, or brain-computer interface device.
  • feedback provided to the user can be any form of sensory feedback, e.g., visual feedback, auditory feedback, or tactile feedback; and input from the user can be received in any form, including acoustic, speech, tactile, or brain wave input.
  • Example output devices 814 include display devices, such as a LED (light emitting diode), CRT (cathode ray tube), or LCD (liquid crystal display) screen, for displaying information to the user.
  • server 880 can be implemented using a server 880 in response to processor 812 executing one or more sequences of one or more instructions contained in memory 820. Such instructions may be read into memory 820 from another machine-readable medium, such as data storage device 826. Execution of the sequences of instructions contained in main memory 820 causes processor 812 to perform the process blocks described herein. One or more processors in a multi-processing arrangement may also be employed to execute the sequences of instructions contained in memory 820. In alternative aspects, hard-wired circuitry may be used in place of or in combination with software instructions to implement various aspects of the present disclosure. Thus, aspects of the present disclosure are not limited to any specific combination of hardware circuitry and software.
  • a computing system that includes a back end component, e.g., as a data server, or that includes a middleware component, e.g., an application server, or that includes a front end component, e.g., a client computer having a graphical user interface or a Web browser through which a user can interact with an implementation of the subject matter described in this specification, or any combination of one or more such back end, middleware, or front end components.
  • the components of the system can be interconnected by any form or medium of digital data communication, e.g., a communication network.
  • the communication network can include, for example, any one or more of a personal area network (PAN), a local area network (LAN), a campus area network (CAN), a metropolitan area network (MAN), a wide area network (WAN), a broadband network (BBN), the Internet, and the like.
  • PAN personal area network
  • LAN local area network
  • CAN campus area network
  • MAN metropolitan area network
  • WAN wide area network
  • BBN broadband network
  • the Internet and the like.
  • the communication network can include, but is not limited to, for example, any one or more of the following network topologies, including a bus network, a star network, a ring network, a mesh network, a star-bus network, tree or hierarchical network, or the like.
  • the communications modules can be, for example, modems or Ethernet cards.
  • Server 880 can be, for example, and without limitation, a desktop computer, laptop computer, or tablet computer. Server 880 can also be embedded in another device, for example, and without limitation, a mobile telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile audio player, a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, a video game console, and/or a television set top box.
  • PDA personal digital assistant
  • GPS Global Positioning System
  • machine-readable storage medium or “computer readable medium” as used herein refers to any medium or media that participates in providing instructions or data to processor 812 for execution. Such a medium may take many forms, including, but not limited to, non-volatile media and volatile media.
  • Non-volatile media include, for example, optical disks, magnetic disks, or flash memory, such as data storage device 826.
  • Volatile media include dynamic memory, such as memory 820.
  • Transmission media include coaxial cables, copper wire, and fiber optics, including the wires that form bus 824.
  • machine-readable media include, for example, floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, any other magnetic medium, a CD-ROM, DVD, any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any other physical medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM, an EPROM, a FLASH EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, or any other medium from which a computer can read.
  • the machine-readable storage medium can be a machine-readable storage device, a machine-readable storage substrate, a memory device, a composition of matter effecting a machine-readable propagated signal, or a combination of one or more of them.
  • the phrase "at least one of preceding a series of items, with the terms “and” or “or” to separate any of the items, modifies the list as a whole, rather than each member of the list (i.e., each item).
  • phrases “at least one of A, B, and C” or “at least one of A, B, or C” each refer to only A, only B, or only C; any combination of A, B, and C; and/or at least one of each of A, B, and C.

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Abstract

La présente invention concerne des systèmes et des procédés pour la commande d'un système de flotte de véhicules. Le système de flotte de véhicules peut comprendre une flotte de porteurs spécialisés présentant des véhicules porteurs spécialisés mis en œuvre par un système de commande de flotte spécialisée. Le système de commande de flotte spécialisée peut être en communication avec un système de commande de porteur commun d'une flotte de porteurs communs et peut être mis en œuvre en vue d'affecter divers envois parmi les véhicules porteurs spécialisés et la flotte de porteurs communs. En particulier, le système de commande de flotte spécialisée peut sélectivement affecter le ou les envois à la flotte spécialisée ou à la flotte de porteurs communs basés sur les contraintes de porteur spécialisé et les contraintes de porteur commun. L'attribution sélective peut être basée, en partie, sur un modèle de coût qui comprend ou exclut des coûts fixes pour la flotte de porteurs spécialisés.
EP17813851.7A 2016-06-16 2017-06-09 Systèmes et procédés de commande de flotte de véhicules Withdrawn EP3472762A4 (fr)

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