Multiobjective Transshipment Point Assignment in China Express Delivery Network

The rapid development in logistics industry urges for an effective express delivery network, to deliver goods to customers in a prompt and cost effective way. Such a network is usually operated in a typical hub-and-spoke manner. Therefore, it is important to assign the hubs (known as transshipment points (TP)) in the network so as to maximize its performance. In this paper, the TP assignment problem is formulated as a multiobjective problem and solved by a multiobjective genetic algorithm (MOGA). The practical usage of the design is demonstrated with a China express delivery network and its effectiveness is confirmed by comparing with a weighted exhaustive heuristic algorithm. As shown by the simulation results, our approach is very effective and a widely spread non-dominated solution set can be obtained.