Principal Component Analysis and Cluster Analysis in Multi-regional Logistics Planning

This paper intend to present a approach for multi-regional logistics planning, the presented approach is a combination algorithm, which is combinated by two traditional methodology-principle component analysis(PCA) and cluster analysis. Basing on the relevant data of logistics development, the evaluation and classification about comprehensive level of logistics development in different regions can be made, and the results can do some contribution for politic making of logistics development as significant basis. This paper considers the 10 cities of Zhejiang province as the logistics center points and uses principle component analysis(PCA) to evaluate the regional logistics development. Cluster analysis is used to classify these regions into several categories according to the new indexes created by PCA. The general planning of regional logistics of Zhejiang province has been made in the end, and this can provide strong support for politic making of regional logistics development. The future research may attempt to optimize the index system for evaluation, and some quantitative index can be added into the index system, or some others index may be deleted from it.