TSB Reference: TSB CB157C |
About the project
This collaborative R&D project aims to improve the abilities of third party haulage and own account haulage enterprises to achieve significantly higher levels of backloading. Achievement of these aims will provide the technology by which these enterprises can drastically reduce their levels of 'empty and/or partial-full loading' of delivery vehicles. It will achieve this aim through the development of novel database management and artificial intelligence tools that will be able to identify individual and backload journeys and their associated performance in terms of minimising costs, improving delivery reliability and reducing risk levels such that more informed decisions are possible offering higher levels of assurance to overcome existing embedded practices. The development of the individual tools that make up the Matched BackLoading Tool (MBTL) will require the selection, development and integration of individual methods and techniques that include neural networks, fuzzy logic, discrete event simulation and genetic algorithms.