Multi-Objective Route Optimization for Long-Distance Cold Chain Transportation Considering Time Window

In the long-distance cold chain transportation from production to distribution, besides the high transportation cost, the product spoilage and carbon emission from refrigerant and fuel usage during transportation also merit attention. At the same time, the time window for transportation indirectly affects customer satisfaction, so this paper shows how to develop a suitable transportation route with multiple optimization objectives mentioned above. First, the optimization objectives of long-distance cold chain transport are specified as transport cost, product spoilage and carbon emission, and the time window of delivery is taken into account to establish a multi-objective optimization model. Second, an improved ant colony algorithm is employed to resolve the Pareto optimal solution of the model. Finally, the effectiveness of the model is confirmed by a calculation example and compared with other methods.