A routing and scheduling approach to rail transportation of hazardous materials with demand due dates

This paper investigates the routing and scheduling of rail shipments of hazardous materials (hazmat) in the presence of due dates. In particular, we consider the problem of minimizing the weighted sum of earliness and tardiness for each demand plus the holding cost at each yard, while forcing a risk threshold on each service leg at any time instant. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) accident records, between 1999 and 2013, were analyzed …