Author(s)

Najam Khan¹, Huitian Lu²

¹Ag, Biosystems, and Mechanical Engineering (Ph.D.), South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD, USA.
²Industrial Engineering (Ph.D.), Professor (Construction & Operations Mgmt.), South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD, USA.

This study uses a simulation-based approach to investigate the impact of delivery delays due to constraints on transport capacity, transit speed, and routing efficiencies on an economy with various levels of interdependency among firms. The simulation uses object-oriented programming to create specialized production, consumption, and transportation classes. A set of objects from each class is distributed randomly on a 2D plane. A road network is then established between fixed objects using Prim’s MST (Minimum Spanning Tree) algorithm, followed by construction of an all-pair shortest path matrix using the Floyd Warshall algorithm. A genetic algorithm-based vehicle routing problem solver employs the all-pair shortest path matrix to best plan multiple pickup and delivery orders. Production units utilize economic order quantities (EOQ) and reorder points (ROP) to manage inventory levels. Hicksian and Marshallian demand functions are utilized by consumption units to maximize personal utility. The transport capacity, transit speed, routing efficiency, and level of interdependence serve as 4 factors in the simulation, each assigned 3 distinct levels. Federov’s exchange algorithm is used to generate an orthogonal array to reduce the number of combination replays from 3⁴ to just 9. The simulation results of a 9-run orthogonal array on an economy with 6 mining facilities, 12 industries, 8 market centers, and 8 transport hubs show that the level of firm interdependence, followed by transit speed, has the most significant impact on economic productivity. The principal component analysis (PCA) indicates that interdependence and transit speed can explain 90.27% of the variance in the data. According to the findings of this research, a dependable and efficient regional transportation network among various types of industries is critical for regional economic development.

Vehicle Routing Problem, Minimum Spanning Tree, Trucks, Road Networks, Production Functions, Modelling of Transport Systems

Khan, N. and Lu, H. (2023) Simulating Transport Capacity, Delivery Speed, and Routing Efficiency to Predict Economic Growth. Intelligent Information Management, 15, 306-337. doi: 10.4236/iim.2023.154015.