A Combined Freight and Passenger Planes Cargo Allocation Model

From the beginning of the 20th century, transporting passengers and cargo has changed due to the advancements in aircraft design. In the last decade, there have also been changes in the levels of technology, information sharing, the distribution of flight data knowledge, and construction of shipping centers or Hubs. All these allow for the highly efficient and dynamic design of optimal freight transportation routes. This paper presents a transportation problem, aiming at finding the optimal route to transfer cargo from the supplier to the customer, which focuses on both passengers and cargo planes. The presented model optimally allocates cargo to passenger and cargo planes, considering: a) the passengers' flights fixed schedule and available planes' capacity, and b) the availability of cargo planes. The goal is to find the cheapest route, or routes, emphasizing the commitment of shipping and delivering according to the customers' requirements. The problem is formulated as an integer linear programming problem. However, since it cannot be optimally solved in a reasonable time, a heuristic algorithm is presented. The results of the of the heuristic algorithm are compared to the optimal solutions using some artificial test networks.