Collaborative Dispatching of Commercial Vehicles

Collaborative dispatching allows several dispatchers to view the routing solution as a dynamic model where changes to the vehicle routes can be made in real-time. In this paper we discuss implications of collaborative dispatching on real-time decision support tools for motor carriers. We present a collaborative dispatching system which uses real-time information obtained from a telematics system. Messages sent from the vehicles are automatically analysed and actual data, such as exact arrival and departure times, as well as discrepancies between actual and planned data are identified. The collaborative dispatching system not only allows several dispatchers to concurrently modify the schedule, but also a dynamic optimisation method. The optimisation method is capable of taking into account that input data may change at any time and that dispatchers can concurrently modify the schedule and may add or relax certain constraints relevant to the optimisation model