Comparing home and parcel lockers’ delivery systems: a math-heuristic approach

E-commerce is a continuously growing sector worldwide, with important repercussions on the delivery system in urban area and especially in the Business to Consumer (B2C) sector. The delivery of a package to a consumer's address involves not only high costs for couriers (greater number of kilometres travelled), but also increased congestion and greater environmental pollution (greater volume of pollutants released into the air). To rationalize deliveries in urban areas the use of collection points, equipped with lockers, to store the goods that users have ordered has been considered in literature. This work compares two alternative delivery options: deliveries to the consumer's home versus to Lockers. To make this comparison we used a cluster first route second math-heuristic approach. In the clustering phase, we experimented a new clustering function, while the routing phase consists in solving an instance of the Traveling Salesman Problem for each generated cluster. Finally, we applied the math-heuristic to a real case (the Italian municipality of Dolo near Venice) and compared the two delivery alternatives. We evaluate the performance considering two different fleets of vehicles, with small and medium capacity. In addition, since additional trips might be performed by consumers to pick up parcels at Lockers, a sensitivity analysis was carried out to analyse the sustainability of the proposed city logistics scheme

Last Mile Delivery with Parcel Lockers: evaluating the environmental impact of eco-conscious consumer behavior

In recent months, online sales have experienced a sharp surge also due to the COVID pandemic. In this paper, we propose a new location and routing problem for a last mile delivery service based on parcel lockers and introduce a mathematical formulation to solve it by means of a MIP solver (Gurobi).The presence of parcel locker stations avoids the door-to-door delivery by companies but requires that consumers move from home to collect their parcels. Potential location of locker stations is known but not all of them need to be opened. The problem minimizes the global environmental impact in terms of distances traveled by both the delivery company and the consumers deciding the optimal number of stations that have to be opened.How much do the number and location of lockers impact on environment? Is the behavior of consumers a critical aspect of such optimization? To this aim we have solved 1680 instances and analyzed diferent scenarios varying the number of consumers and potential parcel lockers, the maximum distance a consumer is willing to travel to reach a locker station, and the maximum distance we may assume the same consumer is willing to travel by foot or by bicycle.The experimental results draw interesting conclusions and managerial insights providing important rules of thumbs for environmental decision makers.Copyright (c) 2022 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Making city logistics more sustainable:Learning form the opportunities and challenges faced in Dutch Cities

The report is a summary of student-led research on sustainable urban logistics, focusing on parcel delivery. It aims to inspire logistics stakeholders including policy advisers, decision-makers and residents with new possible sustainable solutions. The results are presented in three overarching themes: ● NODES, exploring how to effectively implement parcel lockers and logistic hubs ● FLOWS, identifying favourable conditions for cargo bikes, small electric delivery vans and drone delivery ● POLICIES, addressing the consequences of sustainable logistics policies for small entrepreneurs and retail district

Congestion based Truck Drone intermodal delivery optimization

Commerce companies have experienced a rise in the number of parcels that need to be delivered each day. The goal of this study is to provide a decision-making procedure to assist carriers in taking a more significant role in selecting cost and risk-efficient truck-drone intermodal delivery routing plan. The congestion-based model is developed to select the method of parcel delivery utilizing a truck and a drone for optimizing cost and time. A study also has been conducted to compare drone-only and truck-only delivery routing plan. The proposed A* Heuristic algorithm and the OSRM application generate the travel path for drone and a truck along with the time of travel. Case studies have been conducted by varying the weight provided to cost and risk variable, studies indicate that there is a significant change in drone delivery travel time and cost with increase of cost weightage

Shared Mobility Optimization in Large Scale Transportation Networks: Methodology and Applications

abstract: Optimization of on-demand transportation systems and ride-sharing services involves solving a class of complex vehicle routing problems with pickup and delivery with time windows (VRPPDTW). Previous research has made a number of important contributions to the challenging pickup and delivery problem along different formulation or solution approaches. However, there are a number of modeling and algorithmic challenges for a large-scale deployment of a vehicle routing and scheduling algorithm, especially for regional networks with various road capacity and traffic delay constraints on freeway bottlenecks and signal timing on urban streets. The main thrust of this research is constructing hyper-networks to implicitly impose complicated constraints of a vehicle routing problem (VRP) into the model within the network construction. This research introduces a new methodology based on hyper-networks to solve the very important vehicle routing problem for the case of generic ride-sharing problem. Then, the idea of hyper-networks is applied for (1) solving the pickup and delivery problem with synchronized transfers, (2) computing resource hyper-prisms for sustainable transportation planning in the field of time-geography, and (3) providing an integrated framework that fully captures the interactions between supply and demand dimensions of travel to model the implications of advanced technologies and mobility services on traveler behavior.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering 201

Time Slot Allocation and Management of E-grocery

The purpose of the study is to present a solution approach to the reduction of exhaust emission by reducing fuel consumption through the time slot allocation to different service areas that minimize the time used in the delivery process. Further, it strives to create a better option solution approach that curtails the existing challenges confronting e-grocery retailers. A mathematical model is designed with appropriate constraints for the decision variables. We present an exact and a heuristic approach for this problem in which an assignment of customers’ orders to vehicles is obtained by solving a generalized assignment problem with an objective function which minimizes the time used in the delivery leading to the minimization of the fuel consumption and delivery cost. With Matlab and Cplex MILP (Mixed Integer Linear Programming), our experiment shows that by varying the number of vehicles in the fleet, our exact approach (model) can optimally solve more significant problems that can be used by existing and emerging e-grocers

Quantifying environmental and financial benefits of using porters and cycle couriers for last-mile parcel delivery

Parcel carriers face increasingly difficult operating conditions in busy metropolitan areas due to growing consumer demand for ever faster delivery services and having to cope with traffic congestion and city authority measures that may restrict or penalise access for certain types of vehicle. This paper evaluates the potential environmental and financial benefits of switching from traditional van-based deliveries to an alternative operating model, where porters or cycle couriers undertake deliveries supported by a substantially reduced van fleet. Results using a specially-developed algorithm to model operations of a real carrier in an area of central London, UK, suggested that the carrier could reduce CO2 emissions by 45%, NOx emissions by 33%, driving distance by 78% and curbside parking time by 45%. Overall cost savings to the carrier were estimated to be in the range 34–39%. Scaling up the modelled emissions savings to London’s Central Activities Zone, an area of approximately 30 km2 and with current total annual parcel delivery distance of around 15 million km, could see annual emissions savings in the region of 2 million kg CO2 and 1633 kg NOx if all carriers utilised porters or cycle couriers. The key operating challenges identified were related to sorting and consolidating items by weight and volume, parcel handover arrangements and how to deal with express items and failed deliveries

Last mile logistics: Research trends and needs

Aspiring green agendas in conjunction with tremendous economic pressures are resulting in an increased attention to the environment and technological innovations for improving existing logistics systems. Last mile logistics, in particular, are becoming much more than a consumer convenience necessity and a transportation optimization exercise. Rather, this area presents a true opportunity to foster both financial and environmental sustainability. This paper investigates recent technological advancements and pending needs related to business and social innovations, emphasizing green logistics and city logistics concepts. We discuss various pertinent aspects, including drones, delivery robots, truck platooning, collection and pickup points, collaborative logistics, integrated transportation, decarbonization and advanced transport analytics. From a mathematical perspective, we focus on the basic features of the vehicle routing problem and some of its variants. We provide recommendations around strategies that may facilitate the adoption of new effective technologies and innovations