Reference Model of a Milk-Run Delivery Problem

Most of the research on milk-run traffic systems implicitly assumes that there exist solutions that guarantee congestion-free flow of concurrent transport processes in the given transport route structure. Similarly, in solving problems of system structure synthesis, researchers assume that it is possible to shape the structure of a vehicle fleet and/or the topology of transport routes in a way that will guarantee collision-free and timely service to and from the given goods-handling points. However, it is not always possible to meet these guarantees. This fact as well as the NP-hard nature of the above problems necessitate the development of a reference model of distribution systems – a model that will allow to analyze the relationships between the structure of a transport system and its potential behavior, and thus to formulate and solve analysis and synthesis problems corresponding, respectively, to the following questions: Does the given milk-run traffic system guarantee that deliveries are made in compliance with the given customer requirements? Does there exist a milk-run traffic system that guarantees deliveries which meet user expectations?