Stratetgic network design for urban-rural integration logistics

The urban-rural relationship is an important social and spatial connection in a fairly long time in China. With the development of the urban-rural integration, the logistics service demand between two sides is increasing today. So the design and optimization of logistics network between city and rural area is consequentially a very important issue, which plans, implements and controls the efficient, effective dual-direct flow and storage of goods, services and related information between the point of producing area and the point of consumption in order to meet customers´ requirement. In this paper, we formulate an integrated dual-direct multistage logistics network model with considering the direct shipment and direct delivery of logistics. Since such network design problems belong to a class of NP-hard problems, a genetic algorithm-based heuristics with associated numerical results is presented and tested in a set of problem by an exact algorithm to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. A solution of a network design would help in determination of the capacities and location of facilities.