A novel two-phase approach for a sustainable p-hub median problem with multiple service levels and carbon cap-and trade policy under uncertainty

ABSTRACT

To reduce the carbon emissions for society's sustainable development and satisfy customers' personalized delivery service, this paper addresses the cap-and-trade policy and multiple service levels into a p-hub median problem. In the hub network designing, single-assignment patterns between hubs and demand nodes, the choice of transportation mode for each O-D pair and the uncertainties of carbon emission and price are taken into account. Based on a fuzzy chance-constrained programming approach, a fuzzy mathematical model under an expected cost-minimization context with some fuzzy constraints is first presented. Then a two-phase approach is proposed to solve the proposed model. Finally, in view of the comparative analysis with small- and large-scale Turkish instances, serval managerial insights are finally obtained for government and logistics companies in the reduction of carbon emission and the hub network's total designing cost for the sustainable development.

KEYWORDS:

• Cap-and-trade policy
• multiple delivery services
• fuzzy chance-constrained programming
• two-phase approach
• sustainable p-hub median problem

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Philosophy and Social Science project of Henan Province [grant number 2022CJJ145], the Innovation Team of Philosophy and Social Sciences of Henan Polytechnic University [grant number CXTD2021-2] and the Science and Technology Innovative Talents Project of Universities in Henan Province [grant number 22HASTIT010].