Configuring Shuttle Lot Activity

Shuttle lots are used when the regular equipment is too big to get to that location whether because of small roads in cities, small towns or mountains. In that case, you may need to de-couple the trailer at the shuttle lot (or parking lot) and make one or more trips back-and-forth from the shuttle lot to the delivery stop. By configuring shuttle lot activity, you can model the transit times in scenarios that require use of the shuttle lot, so OTM will create time-feasible multistop shipments. If OTM does not know about the extra activity times, OTM might think that another delivery stop can be added, when in reality there is no time to do so.

OTM will model the additional time as activity time at the delivery stop. This additional activity time will represent the time needed to:

drop the trailer at the shuttle lot
load the ship units onto the shuttle delivery truck
drive to the delivery location and deliver orders
drive back to the shuttle lot
if necessary, transfer more ship units onto the shuttle delivery truck for delivery to the same delivery location (as many times as necessary). This is considered reloads.
re-couple the trailer

The time required for these activities will be one "lump" activity time at the delivery location. No stops will be added for any visits to the shuttle lot. The drive time to and from the shuttle lot will not be included as driving time. OTM will model a delivery location and its shuttle lot, but not the scenario wherein multiple delivery locations are serviced from the same shuttle lot.

Use Case

Here is a use case with a simplification of what happens in OTM. In this scenario, there is one pickup stop and three delivery stops: D1, D2, and D3.

The shipment is on a combo equipment with a shuttle delivery truck (the box truck) and a trailer.
The combo equipment is allowed to visit location D2.
However at D1 and D3, the combo equipment is not allowed into the location. The trailer must be dropped at the shuttle lot so the shuttle delivery truck can deliver into the location by itself.

Real World Situation:

Picks up at depot P.
Drives to D1's shuttle lot, and drops trailer.
Drives box truck alone to D1 to deliver. Drives back to shuttle lot and re-connects trailer.
Drives to D2 to deliver.
Drives to D3's shuttle lot, and drops trailer.
Drives box truck alone to D3 to deliver. Drives back to shuttle lot and re-connects trailer.
Drives back to depot.

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Situation as modeled by OTM for shuttle lot activity:

Picks up at depot P.
Drives to and delivers at D1. The shuttle lot logic computes extra activity time at D1 to account for the additional shuttle lot related activity and drive time.
Drives to and delivers at D2. (No extra activity time is needed.)
Drives to and delivers at D3. The shuttle lot logic computes extra activity time at D3 to account for the additional shuttle lot related activity and drive time.
Drives back to depot P.

image is fully described in surrounding text

Configuration

The following is needed for configuring shuttle lot activity:

Set the parameter CHECK STOP SPECIAL SERVICE IN EQUIPMENT PACKING to True.
Define the equipment group as a combo equipment, with the first of the combo equipment being a shuttle delivery truck.
On the location, define a shuttle lot equipment group profile.
Define a special service with activity type of "SHUTTLE_LOT".
On the Location Roles tab, enter your special service.
On the Location Role Profile, define the activity time for your special service. With a special service of this activity type, you can define a new activity time definition with fixed and variable times for the shuttle lot activities. This fixed duration (not a per-ship-unit duration) specified on the activity time definition is the Shuttle Lot Fixed Time. The variable duration specified on the activity time definition is Shuttle Lot Reload Time. So the total reload time is computed by multiplying this reload time with the estimated number of reloads. All other fields on the activity time definition are ignored during shuttle lot activity time computation, i.e. when the activity type of the special service used on the activity time definition is SHUTTLE_LOT.

Examples

In this set of examples, the combo equipment group ABC consists of two "child" equipment groups:

Equipment Group holding 30 ERUs

Trailer Equipment Group holding 80 ERUs

Example 1: For location X, the Equipment Group Profile includes ABC, and the "Shuttle Lot" equipment group profile (EGP) does not include ABC.

This means that a shipment with ABC is allowed to deliver to location X, and does not need to use the shuttle lot.

The Shuttle Lot logic will not be used for this location. The activity time will be computed as usual.

Example 2: For location X, the Equipment Group Profile does not include ABC, and the "Shuttle Lot" EGP does not include ABC.

This means that a shipment with ABC is not allowed to deliver to location X, regardless of shuttle lots, so the Shuttle Lot logic will not be used for this location.

Presumably a different equipment group can be used at this location.

Example 3: For location X, the Equipment Group Profile includes ABC, and the "Shuttle Lot" EGP includes ABC. 20 ERUs are to be delivered at X.

This means that a shipment with ABC is allowed to deliver to location X, but the Shuttle Lot logic will be used.

Only the shuttle delivery truck is allowed to visit location X, so the combo truck will first go to the shuttle lot, drop off the trailer, and then just the shuttle delivery truck will visit location X.

In OTM, in the Shuttle Lot logic, the Shuttle Lot Fixed Time is added to the activity time for the stop at location X.

Example 4: For location X, the Equipment Group Profile includes ABC, and the "Shuttle Lot" EGP includes ABC. 50 ERUs are to be delivered at X.

As in example 3, the Shuttle Lot logic is used.

Since the shuttle delivery truck cannot carry all 50 ERUs, the shuttle delivery truck will make two deliveries into location X, in between driving back to the shuttle lot to reload.

In OTM, in the Shuttle Lot logic, the Shuttle Lot Fixed Time is added to the activity time for the stop at location X, and so is the Shuttle Lot Reload Time.

Example 5: For location X, the Equipment Group Profile includes ABC, and the "Shuttle Lot" EGP includes ABC. 80 ERUs are to be delivered at X.