DHL Innovation Center

Quintiq is playing a central role in the dynamic route planning of Deutsche Post DHL’s SmartTruck project, sponsored by the DHL Innovation Center.

Project Outline

Quintiq’s “Pick-up & Delivery” (PUD) planning solution optimizes routes and ensures that available vehicle capacity is utilized to the maximum. Thanks to its dynamic planning capability, it is possible to relay ad hoc pick-ups to vehicles in real time while they are in transit. In doing so, the system takes journey times, customer service, workloads, cargo capacities and processing time into account. Unutilized capacities can be identified at a glance and can be used immediately.

Dynamic route planning not only calculates the best route in advance, it is also the first system to take into account real-time traffic information in inner city areas, for example traffic jams or construction sites, and adapt routes accordingly.

Progress

The project was officially started in January 2008 with a pilot project in Berlin that initially involved eight delivery vehicles. Following the pilot’s success, since October 2010, the Smart Trucks have also been deployed in the Cologne/Bonn area.

Results

As planned, DHL managed to save 15% of the mileage and the duration of tours was also reduced by 8%. Additional benefits include reduced fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. SmartTruck thus also contributes to environmental protection.

Partners

Other project partners include the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the German Aerospace Agency (DLR), the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and Motorola.

Read the press release here.

Visit the website of DHL Innovation Center.

“The expected savings from fuel consumption and CO2 emissions were realized.
Additionally, the reliability and punctuality in pickup and delivery of shipments have significantly increased.”
Dr. Keith Ulrich, Head of Technology & Innovation Management at Deutsche Post DHL