 We introduce a dynamic and stochastic transportation problem consisting of two subproblems. For parcel transportation in hub-and-spoke networks, swap containers are used to carry out hub-to-hub shipments. This constitutes a pickup and delivery problem on the operational level. On the tactical level, empty swap containers are balanced over the hub-network in order to match the stochastic deman...

We examine the problem of the intertemporal allocation of the solid waste of cities within the United States to spatially distributed landfills and incinerators, taking into account that capacity at existing and potential landfills is scarce. Amendments to the Solid Waste Disposal Act have been proposed to restrict waste flows between states by means of quotas and surcharges. We assess the aggr...

Suppliers of capital goods increasingly offer performance-based service contracts with customer-specific service levels. We use selective emergency shipments of spare parts to differentiate logistic performance: We apply emergency shipments in out-of-stock situations for combinations of parts and customer classes that yield service levels close to the class-specific targets. We develop two heur...

According to a recent report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Task Force on Prescription Drug Importation (HHS Task Force Report), nearly 5 million shipments of unapproved prescription drugs entered the U.S. in 2003 from Canada through Internet sales and from travel to Canada by American consumers.1 Astonishingly, these unapproved shipments comprised roughly 12 m...

We examine the intertemporal allocation of the solid waste of cities within the United States to spatially distributed landfills and incinerators, taking into account that capacity at existing and potential landfills is scarce. Amendments have been proposed to restrict waste flows between states by means of quotas and surcharges. We assess the aggregate surplus loss (and its regional distributi...

In this note, we correct some typos that appeared in Yassine et al. {Yassine, A., Maddah, B., Salameh M., Disaggregation and consolidation of imperfect quality shipments in an extended EPQ model, International Journal of Production Economics 135 (2012) 345–352}, specifically, for one of their models that considered consolidating shipments of imperfect quality items across multiple production cy...

Increased enforcement can displace crime to alternative lawbreaking methods. This paper examines a customs reform in the Philippines that raised enforcement against a specific method of avoiding import duties. Increased enforcement applied only to shipments from some countries, so shipments from other countries serve as a control group. Increased enforcement reduced the targeted duty-avoidance ...

A method for forecasting the number of parts shipments is proposed for build-to-order products using pre-sales estimate information as a leading indicator. Since the target number of parts shipments changes irregularly and over a short lifecycle, it is difficult to forecast with conventional methods. The method uses Kalman filter to correct for the noise associated with the leading indicator an...

I study the conversion of 13,000 miles of railroad track in the U.S. South to standard gauge on May 31 and June 1, 1886 as a large-scale natural experiment in compatibility. Using route-level freight traffic data, I find a large redistribution of traffic from steamships to railroads that declines with distance, with no effect on prices or aggregate shipments due to carriers’ anticompetitive con...