Centrality in Strategic Transportation Network Design: An Application to Less-Than-truckload Networks

Efficient and effective transportation networks are backbones to modern societies. Methodologically, their design has mainly been driven by optimization approaches oftentimes with a strong cost focus. Their strategic planning, however, should go beyond detailed cost analysis and identify other key decision drivers.Transportation network centrality describes the appearance of a network; hence is crucial for network design. Anne Paul develops a strategic approach to transportation network design by conceptualizing transportation network centrality and relating it to the performance and quality of transportation networks. Consequently, the concept of network centrality serves to support decisions in strategic network design. A practical implementation of this approach is provided, demonstrating its feasibility. Potential readers include scholars and practitioners from logistics, supply chain management, and operational research with an interest in strategic transportation network design.