A decision support system for freight transportation planning

This paper examines the structure and components of a Decision Support System designed to assist the tactical planning of activities of an intercity multimode multicommodity freight transportation system, using the tactical planning of LTL motor-carrier operations as an example. In particular, such a computer-based planning system has to combine a local data base, together with procedures to access and analyze it, interfaces with the management information system of the company, problem modeling and scenario defining facilities, optimization algorithms and post-optimal procedures and, interactive-graphic capabilities to display and help analyze data and results (A).