Empty pallet allocation models for the postal service

Abstract

In the postal service, specific transportation equipments, pallets are used to carry mail and packages efficiently. Since some regions send more goods than they receive and others receive more than they send, there exists imbalance between demand and supply for the empty pallets. They should be repositioned to satisfy demands. Empty Pallet Allocation (EPA) problem involves reallocating empty pallets to cope with this situation. The current EPA process of the postal service is analyzed, in which decisions are still made manually. It can be represented as single commodity models which can be solved in a polynomial time. These models provide us with optimal repositioning schedules of the empty pallets.