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Title:

Integrated Planning of Biofuel Supply Chain Networks and Multimodal Infrastructure Expansion

Accession Number:

01371052

Record Type:

Component

Abstract:

As the biofuel industry continues to expand, the construction of new bio-refinery facilities induces a huge amount of biomass feedstock shipment from supply points to the refineries and biofuel shipment to the consumption locations, which increases traffic demand in the transportation network and contributes to additional congestion (especially in the neighborhood of the refineries). Hence, it is beneficial to form public-private partnerships to simultaneously consider transportation network expansion and biofuel supply chain design in order to mitigate congestion. This paper presents an integrated mathematical model for biofuel supply chain design where the optimum number and location of biorefinery facilities, the optimal routing of biomass and biofuel shipments, and possible highway/railroad capacity expansion are determined. The objective is to minimize the total cost for biorefinery construction, transportation infrastructure expansion, and transportation delay (for both biomass/biofuel shipment and public travel) under congestion. A genetic algorithm framework (with embedded Lagrangian relaxation and traffic assignment algorithms) is developed to solve the optimization model, and an empirical case study for the state of Illinois is conducted with realistic biofuel production data. The computational results show that the proposed solution approach is able to solve the problem efficiently. Various managerial insights are also drawn.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADB30 Transportation Network Modeling

Monograph Accession #:

01362476

Report/Paper Numbers:

12-1861

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Hajibabai, Leila
Ouyang, Yanfeng

Pagination:

19p

Publication Date:

2012

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2012-1-22 to 2012-1-26
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

Digital/other

Features:

Figures; Maps; References; Tables

Geographic Terms:

Illinois

Subject Areas:

Energy; Freight Transportation; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Railroads; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2012 Paper #12-1861

Files:

TRIS, TRB

Created Date:

Feb 8 2012 5:06PM