Low-Carbon Cold-Chain Logistics Path Optimization Problem Considering the Influence of Road Impedance

An improved road impedance function in conformity with Chinese city road traffic is designed for calculating the actual transportation time based on real-time traffic information and the complex road environment in the city. The objective function minimizes the total distribution cost, including fixed cost, transportation cost, damage cost, energy cost, penalty cost, and carbon emission cost. A mathematical model is constructed for cold-chain logistics distribution path optimization considering the influence of road impedance. The model is solved using three particle swarm optimization algorithms with improved weights. The experimental results show that the self-adaptive weighted particle swarm optimization algorithm is more efficient in solving this model. Experimental results obtained from the cold-chain logistics path optimization model considering road impedance compared to those of the model without road impedance indicate that the former are closer to the actual situation. Based on the changes in carbon emission and total cost under different carbon taxes, we analyze the critical carbon tax value and the optimal carbon tax value range to improve the economic and environmental benefits in the distribution process. This study should prove to be of great practical significance and application value for logistics enterprises to conduct rational planning of path problems.