Optimizing Door Assignment in LTL-Terminals by Evolutionary Multiobjective Algorithms

In less-than-truckload terminals arriving trucks have to be allocated to a gate and to a time slot for unloading. The allocation to a specific gate results in different transportation volumes for the forklift trucks inside of the terminal, depending on the destinations of the truck’s loads. While minimizing these transports the time for trucks waiting to be ordered to a gate also has to be minimized. For the first time this problem has been tackled as a 2-objective optimization problem and was solved by an (1+1)-evolution strategy. We developed a model which is derived from real freight forwarder’s data and represents a small company’s terminal on an average workday.