What the study found
The study found that allowing driver overtime in a flower retail distribution network can reduce costs. It also found that routes chosen to minimize cost can differ significantly from routes chosen to minimize distance.
Why the authors say this matters
The authors conclude that overtime can be beneficial for cost savings, especially for serving locations far from headquarters. The study suggests that using a cost-based model may be more appropriate than relying only on distance when planning routes.
What the researchers tested
The researchers studied a vehicle routing problem for a florist company in Norway, including deliveries, split pickups, a heterogeneous fleet of capacitated trucks, and a heterogeneous workforce of drivers. They used a route-based mixed integer linear programming model that included ordinary driving costs, overtime costs, pickup time, and social constraints on driver workload.
What worked and what didn't
The model produced results that outperformed manually produced solutions and a commercial software tool. The reported cost reductions were 17.4%–36.4% compared with manual solutions and 9.7%–25.5% compared with the commercial software; the results also changed when different overtime allowances were used.
What to keep in mind
The abstract does not describe the full limits of the study. The findings are based on one florist-company application in Norway and on the specific model settings tested, including the choice between cost minimization and distance minimization.
Key points
- Allowing driver overtime reduced routing costs in the studied flower distribution network.
- The model included deliveries, split pickups, truck capacity, driver workload, ordinary hours, and overtime costs.
- The optimization results beat both manual planning and a commercial software tool.
- Reported cost reductions were 17.4%–36.4% versus manual solutions and 9.7%–25.5% versus commercial software.
- Cost-minimizing routes could differ substantially from distance-minimizing routes.
Disclosure
- Research title:
- Driver overtime reduced costs in flower distribution routing
- Authors:
- Christian Braathen, Mario Guajardo
- Institutions:
- Norwegian School of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics
- Publication date:
- 2026-01-23
- DOI:
- 10.1002/net.70029
- OpenAlex record:
- View
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