Dynamic routing of time-sensitive air cargo using real-time information

1366-5545/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd doi:10.1016/j.tre.2011.07.004 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 313 577 3872; fa E-mail addresses: [email protected] (F. Azad 1 Bisignani, G., Plenary speech, IATA World Air Car The route planning of time-sensitive air-cargo is becoming more important with the growing air-network congestion and delays. We consider a freight forwarder’s routing of a timesensitive air-cargo in the presence of real-time and historical information regarding flight availability, departure delays and travel times. A departure delay estimation model is developed to account for real-time information inaccuracy. A novel Markov decision model is formulated and solved with online backward induction. Through synthetic experiments and case studies, we demonstrate that dynamic routing with real-time information can improve delivery reliability and reduce expected cost. 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.