Models for comparing air-only and sea/air transportation of wartime deployment cargo
By: Michael J. Theres
Publisher: Naval Postgraduate School; Available from National Technical Information Service
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Monterey, Calif; Springfield, Va
Language: eng
Number of pages: 58
Description: When faced with an overseas contingency, efficiencies may be gained by using ships in conjunction with aircraft      to transport military cargo from the Continental United States (CONUS) to an overseas Port of Debarkation      (POD). This thesis evaluates a proposal to load air-transportable cargo aboard vessels at CONUS seaports      and to ship that cargo to an appropriately located sea-air- interface (SAI) for further transport by air to the final      POD. This bi-modal approach is profoundly different from the current uni-modal paradigm where cargo loaded      on a given platform at the port of embarkation continues on the same platform to the POD. Two mixed-integer      programming models compare the incumbent and candidate transportation paradigms. The models are      formulated in the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) and run on a desktop PC. Solutions for a      typical set of overseas airlift-only cargo requirements are obtained in less than one minute for both the air-only      and bi-modal models. This research concludes that the bi-modal paradigm is less efficient than the uni-modal      paradigm with respect to lift asset utilization and timeliness of deliveries, but may have merit as supplemental      transportation to alleviate the backlog of surge cargo in the early phase of a conflict. For instance, by      pre-positioning cargo at the SAIs, we are able to reduce the aircraft inventory required to execute our      Time-Phased Force and Deployment Database from 44 to 30.
Notes: "December 1998."

Thesis advisor(s): R. Kevin Wood.

Thesis (M.S. in Operations Research) Naval Postgraduate School, December 1998.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-56)

Approved for public release; distribution unlimited.

Also available online.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

System requirements: Adobe Acrobat reader.

US Navy (USN) author.

dk/dk cc:9116 02/12/99.