Using the Crowd of Taxis to Last Mile Delivery in E-commerce: a Methodological Research

International audienceCrowdsourcing is garnering increased attention in freight transport area, mainly applied in internet-based services to city logistics. However, scientific research, especially methodology for application is still rare in the literature. This paper aims to fill this gap and to propose a methodological approach of applying crowdsourcing solution to Last Mile Delivery in E-commerce environment. The proposed solution is based on taxi fleet in city and a transport network composed by road network and customer self-pickup facilities that are 24 hours shops in city, named as TaxiCrowdShipping system. The system relies on a two-phase decision model, first offline taxi trajectory mining and second online package routing and taxi scheduling. Being the first stage of our study, this paper introduces the framework of the system and the decision model development. Some expected results and research perspectives are also discussed. 1 Introduction In E-commerce environment, Last Mile Delivery (hereafter LMD) is the problem of transport planning for delivering goods from e-retailers' hub to the final destination in the area, for example the end consumers' home, see [1] and [2]. Speed and cost are the two crucial success factors to LMD. Faster shipping while with lower cost is the major challenge; nevertheless, it is also a paradox to a certain extend. Indeed, when customers are given a choice between fast and cheap delivery, most of them choose the cheap one, observed by a recent report [3]. The report also infers that that low-cost, speedy two-day delivery corresponds to most customers' expectation, opposite to the one-day delivery policy pursued by giant e-retailers such as Amazon and Alibaba etc. This fact may open up new opportunities to innovative freight transport models [4] for LMD aiming at reducing delivery cost while respecting shipping time

An inventory control model with interconnected logistic services for vendor inventory management

International audienceThis paper proposes an inventory control model taking advantage of interconnected logistic services in the Physical Internet for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector. Unlike current hierarchical inventory model where the source of each is pre-assigned, the goods are stored and distributed in an interconnected and open network of PI-hubs which enables storage capacity and transportation sharing among different companies around the network. As a result, theoretically, the suppliers can push their goods all around the network and the retailers can be served by any hub in the network. A non-linear global optimization inventory model to minimize the total logistic costs is proposed and a heuristic using simulated annealing is applied to solve the problem. Numerical experiments are taken to compare the performance of the proposed PI inventory model and classic inventory control model for different settings of a typical supply network. Results suggest that the PI inventory control model can always reduce the total logistic cost while reaching a comparable or improved end customer service level

A sharing mechanism for superadditive and non-superadditive logistics cooperation

International audienceThe lack of a stable, fair and generally applicable sharing mechanism is one of the most noticeable impediments to the implementation of logistics cooperation. Most of the current literature on the sharing mechanism in logistics cooperation focuses on superadditive logistics cooperation games, neglecting the probable occurrence of other types of games resulting from coordination cost and unequal partners. In this work, we propose a sharing model based on game theoretic solutions, taking account of the bargaining power of players to identify a fair in-Core allocation. Under full cooperation assumption, we generalize this model for non-superadditive logistics cooperation games with coordination costs at different levels. The games with empty Core are also studied within the model

Game theoretic contribution to horizontal cooperation in logistics

International audienceHorizontal cooperation in logistics was proved globally advantageous, but we see only few realizations until now. The main obstacle to the successful implementation of horizontal cooperation is the absence of appropriate cooperation decision making model, consisting of the detailed cooperation process, the optimization model, and the stable-and-fair gain sharing mechanism. In this paper, we propose a practical cooperation decision making model for the realization of horizontal logistics cooperation scheme. This model is a decision process integrating an optimization tool and a game-theoretic approach to find a feasible allocation rule, and stable coalitions related to coalition structures issue. We propose a weighted allocation rule that takes bargaining power, contribution and core stability into account, and generalize it in games with coalition structure. Then we investigate related stability issue under two different cooperation patterns. At the end, we present a case study of France retail supply network, which verifies the cooperation model we proposed

Allocation of Transportation Cost & CO2 Emission in Pooled Supply Chains Using Cooperative Game Theory

International audienceThe sustainability of supply chain,both economical and ecological, has attracted intensive attentions of academic and industry. It is proven in former works that supply chain pooling given by horizontal cooperation among several independent supply chains create a new common supply chain network that could reduce the costs and the transport CO2 emissions. In this regard, this paper introduces a scheme to share in a fairly manner the savings. After a summary of the concept of pooled-supply-networks optimization and CO2 emission model, we use cooperative game theory as the cooperative mechanism for the implementation of the horizontal pooling. Since we proved the related pooling game to be super-additive, a fair and stable allocation of common gain in transportation cost and CO2 emission is calculated by Shapley Value concept. Through a case study, the results show that supply chains pooling can result in reductions of both transportation cost and carbon emissions, and that the increase of carbon-tax rate gives enterprises more incentives for the implementation of such pooling scheme

Modeling and analysis of alternative distribution and Physical Internet schemes in urban area

Urban logistics is becoming more complicated and costlier due to new challenges in recent years. Since the main problem lies on congestion, the clean vehicle is not necessarily the most effective solution. There is thus a need to redesign the logistics networks in the city. This paper proposes a methodology to evaluate different distribution schemes in the city among which we find the most efficient and sustainable one. External impacts are added to the analysis of schemes, including accident, air pollution, climate change, noise, and congestion. An optimization model based on an analytical model is developed to optimize transportation means and distribution schemes. Results based on Bordeaux city show that PI scheme improves the performances of distribution

Less-than-truckload Dynamic Pricing Model in Physical Internet

International audienceThis paper investigates a decision-making problem consisting of less-than-truckload dynamic pricing (LTLDP) under Physical Internet (PI). PI can be seen as the interconnection of logistics networks via open PI-hubs, which can be considered as spot freight markets where LTL requests of different volume/destination continuously arrive over time for a short-stay. Carriers can bid for the requests by using short-term contract. This paper proposes a dynamic pricing model to optimise carrier’s bid price to maximise his expected profits. Three influencing factors are investigated: requests quantity, carrier’s capacity and cost. The results provide useful guidelines to carriers on pricing decisions in PI-hub

PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF DISTRIBUTED INVENTORY IN PHYSICAL INTERNET

International audienceClassical supply chain design relies on a hierarchical organization to store and distribute products over a given geographical area. Within this framework a shortage in a stock affects the whole downstream of the supply chain regardless of the inventory kept in others locations. Within the Physical Internet approach, inventories are distributed in hubs towards the market and source substitution is allowed. The Physical Internet aims to integrate logistics networks into a universal system of interconnected services through the development of protocols and standards for the routing of smart containers of various sizes. This organization enables a distributed storage of goods in hubs thanks to containerization, thus the feasibility of multi-sourcing to one ordering point. This contribution measures the impact of such an organization on stock levels and inventory costs with service level set as a constraint. The analysis focuses on the resources levels (transportation and inventory) needed by the current supply model and by the Physical Internet in order to serve a market with a (Q,R) stock policy. Starting with two supply models and with the definition of cost models as well as inventory policy, the work is based on computer simulation. The analysis tested 3 different families of criterion in order to select dynamically the source when an order is requested: Source Substitution, Minimum Ratio and Minimum Sum. The source substitution, one of the simplest, was found the more efficient and stable according to different scenarios

Simulating a physical internet enabled mobility web: the case of mass distribution in France

International audiencePhysical Internet (PI, π) is a novel concept aiming to render more economically, environmentally and socially efficient and sustainable the way physical objects are transported, handled, stored, realized, supplied and used throughout the world. It enables, among other webs, the Mobility Web which deals with moving physical objects within an interconnected set of unimodal and multimodal hubs, transits, ports, roads and ways. We want to develop and use holistic simulations to study and quantify the impact in terms of economical, environmental, and social efficiency and performance of evolving from the current system of freight transportation toward an open logistics web in France. This paper focuses on how the mobility web simulator supporting this study was designed and developed. The simulator produces large-scale simulations of mobility webs consisting of a large number of companies, sites and agents dealing with thousands of daily orders. It supports route and rail transportation modes, pallets and PI-containers for product shipping, different kinds of routing and shipping strategies, and various types of hubs

Smart city for sustainable urban freight logistics

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