This paper presents a methodology to identify when freight consolidation strategies are cost-efficient in the less-than-truckload carriers operations. Shipments are assigned based on proximity and cost criteria to build an initial long-haul shipment solution. This initial solution is later improved by the implementation of Tabu Search algorithm. The proximity criterion takes into account the spatial distribution of shipments loads among centers. The results show that the proposed methodology may reduce the transportation cost by 20% compared to the solution of those heuristics only considering cost criterion. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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