Hybrid Quantum-Classical Optimization Workflows for the Shipment Selection Problem

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lopez-Ruiz, Miguel Angel, Zhu, Daiwei, Hatzenbuhler, Jonas, Zhao, Shudian, Girotto, Claudio, Aboumrad, Willie, Alm, Jonas, Kompalla, Julia, Issler, Mena, Kaushik, Ananth, Roetteler, Martin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Lopez-Ruiz, Miguel Angel
Zhu, Daiwei
Hatzenbuhler, Jonas
Zhao, Shudian
Girotto, Claudio
Aboumrad, Willie
Alm, Jonas
Kompalla, Julia
Issler, Mena
Kaushik, Ananth
Roetteler, Martin
author_facet Lopez-Ruiz, Miguel Angel
Zhu, Daiwei
Hatzenbuhler, Jonas
Zhao, Shudian
Girotto, Claudio
Aboumrad, Willie
Alm, Jonas
Kompalla, Julia
Issler, Mena
Kaushik, Ananth
Roetteler, Martin
contents We present a quantum optimization framework for the Shipment Selection Problem (SSP) in electric freight logistics, developed jointly by IonQ and Einride. Idle gaps arising from stochastic shipment cancellations reduce fleet utilization and revenue; filling them optimally requires solving a combinatorial assignment problem with quadratic inter-gap dependencies. We formulate the SSP as a Mixed-Integer Quadratic Program, map it to an Ising cost Hamiltonian, and solve it using Iterative-QAOA, a non-variational warm-start extension of the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) with a fixed linear-ramp parameter schedule. An end-to-end hybrid workflow integrates Einride's vehicle routing problem (VRP) solver with IonQ's quantum simulations, enabling evaluation on real, anonymized logistics data spanning up to 130 qubits. We assess solution quality through application-level performance metrics, including Shipments Delivered (SD), Schedule Compatibility Score (SCS), and Total Drive Distance (TDD). When the quantum assignment is passed to the classical solver as a warm start, the resulting hybrid workflow achieves improvements of up to 12\% in SD and a reduction of up to 6\% in total drive distance per shipment for specific instances, while total operational cost remains effectively unchanged. These results show that Iterative-QAOA can generate compatibility-aware assignments that become operationally valuable when embedded in a hybrid logistics optimization workflow.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_11758
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Hybrid Quantum-Classical Optimization Workflows for the Shipment Selection Problem
Lopez-Ruiz, Miguel Angel
Zhu, Daiwei
Hatzenbuhler, Jonas
Zhao, Shudian
Girotto, Claudio
Aboumrad, Willie
Alm, Jonas
Kompalla, Julia
Issler, Mena
Kaushik, Ananth
Roetteler, Martin
Quantum Physics
We present a quantum optimization framework for the Shipment Selection Problem (SSP) in electric freight logistics, developed jointly by IonQ and Einride. Idle gaps arising from stochastic shipment cancellations reduce fleet utilization and revenue; filling them optimally requires solving a combinatorial assignment problem with quadratic inter-gap dependencies. We formulate the SSP as a Mixed-Integer Quadratic Program, map it to an Ising cost Hamiltonian, and solve it using Iterative-QAOA, a non-variational warm-start extension of the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) with a fixed linear-ramp parameter schedule. An end-to-end hybrid workflow integrates Einride's vehicle routing problem (VRP) solver with IonQ's quantum simulations, enabling evaluation on real, anonymized logistics data spanning up to 130 qubits. We assess solution quality through application-level performance metrics, including Shipments Delivered (SD), Schedule Compatibility Score (SCS), and Total Drive Distance (TDD). When the quantum assignment is passed to the classical solver as a warm start, the resulting hybrid workflow achieves improvements of up to 12\% in SD and a reduction of up to 6\% in total drive distance per shipment for specific instances, while total operational cost remains effectively unchanged. These results show that Iterative-QAOA can generate compatibility-aware assignments that become operationally valuable when embedded in a hybrid logistics optimization workflow.
title Hybrid Quantum-Classical Optimization Workflows for the Shipment Selection Problem
topic Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.11758