Multi-hop driver-parcel matching problem with time windows

Crowdsourced shipping can result in significant economic and social benefits. For a shipping company, it has a potential cost advantage and creates opportunities for faster deliveries. For the society, it can provide desirable results by reducing congestion and air pollution. Despite the great poten...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Flexible services and manufacturing journal 2018-09, Vol.30 (3), p.517-553
Main Authors: Chen, Wenyi, Mes, Martijn, Schutten, Marco
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Civil Engineering
Delivery scheduling
Engineering
Engineering Sciences
Infrastructures de transport
Machines
Manufacturing
Matching
Operations Management
Operations Research/Decision Theory
Processes
Schedules
Shipping
Windows (intervals)
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Summary:Crowdsourced shipping can result in significant economic and social benefits. For a shipping company, it has a potential cost advantage and creates opportunities for faster deliveries. For the society, it can provide desirable results by reducing congestion and air pollution. Despite the great potential, crowdsourced shipping is not well studied. With the aim of using the spare capacities along the existing transportation flows of the crowd to deliver small-to-medium freight volumes, this paper defines the multi-driver multi-parcel matching problem and proposes a general ILP formulation, which incorporates drivers’ maximum detour, capacity limits, and the option of transferring parcels between drivers. Due to the high computational complexity, we develop two heuristics to solve the problem. The numerical study shows that crowdsourced shipping can be an economic viable and sustainable option, depending on the spatial characteristics of the network and drivers’ schedules. Furthermore, the added benefits increase with an increasing number of participating drivers and parcels.
ISSN:1936-6582
1936-6590
DOI:10.1007/s10696-016-9273-3