Electric or fuel? Green routing optimization with time uncertainty in fourth-party logistics
May 8, 2026·,
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0 min read
Hongliang Xu
Min Huang*
Songchen Jiang
Yuxin Zhang
Junwei Wang
Xingwei Wang
Abstract
This paper investigates a green fourth-party logistics (4PL) routing optimization problem, incorporating transportation time uncertainty and the strategic choice between fuel vehicles (FVs) and electric vehicles (EVs) to reduce carbon emissions. To ensure timely delivery under time uncertainty, a mixed-integer chance-constrained programming (MICCP) model is developed. Given limited historical data, the MICCP model is reformulated through sample average approximation method and a Sample Mean-based Heuristic (SMH) algorithm is further proposed, which works as a data-driven method for potentially broader chance constrained programming with left-hand uncertainty. Numerical study validates the effectiveness of proposed models and algorithm, and offers managerial insights on balancing electric and fuel vehicle usage. We find that (1) stricter carbon tax policies do not necessarily motivate 4PLs to adopt EVs for emission reduction; (2) increasing switching time between transport providers will weaken the pooling advantages of 4PL mode, but encouraging the adoption of EVs.
Type
Publication
Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment
Authors
Researcher in Operations Research
I am a joint Ph.D. student in the College of Information Science and Engineering at Northeastern University, China, supervised by Prof. Min Huang, and the Institute of Operations Research and Analytics at the National University of Singapore, supervised by Prof. Chung-Piaw Teo. My research lies at the intersection of data-driven optimization, distributionally robust optimization, stochastic modeling, and supply chain analytics. I am particularly interested in developing tractable optimization models and algorithms for decision-making under uncertainty, with applications in inventory systems, supply chain network design, logistics planning, and operations management.