Abstract
Since its appearance in the 1990s, horizontal collaboration (HC) practices have revealed themselves as catalyzers for optimizing the distribution of goods in freight transport logistics. After introducing the main concepts related to HC, this paper offers a literature review on the topic and provides a classification of best practices in HC. Then, the paper analyses the main benefits and optimization challenges associated with the use of HC at the strategic, tactical, and operational levels. Emerging trends such as the concept of ‘green’ or environmentally-friendly HC in freight transport logistics are also introduced. Finally, the paper discusses the need of using hybrid optimization methods, such as simheuristics and learnheuristics, in solving some of the previously identified challenges in real-life scenarios dominated by uncertainty and dynamic conditions.
Keywords
- Horizontal collaboration
- freight transport
- sustainable logistics
- supply chain management
- combinatorial optimization
Rights
Copyright
From February 2013 articles are under a Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-ND You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), you may not use the work for commercial purposes and you may not alter, transform, or build upon the work.
