Application of Selected Optimization Methods in Car Distribution Planning on the Example of Polish Market

At present, many transportation companies can boast about their new and modern transport fleet. However, only few of them have advanced decision support software for route planning. Most often the decisions related to the organization of transport depend on the experience of the staff. The chapter takes an optimisation-based perspective of the problem of work organization for a given means of transport in the distribution of passenger cars. The author illustrates selected methods of optimizing transportation services which can be used to improve the flow of vehicles from the loading point to the car dealer. One of the methods presented in the chapter is a technique based on permutations and the evolutionary method, the other—the branch and bound method with Little algorithm. They are used to solve the most-known combinatorial problem—the Travelling Salesman Problem. The main objective of the chapter is to show the possibility of using these methods in a simple way, without using specialized software. In addition, apart from the simplicity of their use, the application of these methods could help to optimize route planning, shorten the working time of drivers, and consequently increase the economic efficiency of the distribution system of a transportation company. Eventually, the chapter provides an example of solving the vehicle routing problem together with its analysis.