Optimization Approaches in the Strategic and Tactical Planning of Networks for Letter, Parcel and Freight Mail

The increasing market competition and service focus of the customers forces logistics service providers such as e.g. postal organizations and express shipment companies to re-evaluate and to constantly improve their networks for letter, parcel and freight mail. The core service provided by postal companies is parcel and letter mail transportation and delivery. In this market segment there are two key efforts during the last few years: reduction in transportation and delivery time and minimization of costs under service quality constraints. We will analyse the structure of real world distribution networks for letter, parcel or freight mail and describe the respective subnetworks. We will introduce a general approach of heuristic decomposition of such distribution networks using cut-off times and time windows in order to model service quality requirements. Finally we will describe the models, optimization approaches and the implemented Decision Support Systems of three real world cases of subnetworks of distribution networks.