Urban Crowdsourced Last Mile Delivery: Mode of Transport Effects on Fleet Performance

The paper proposes an evaluation method providing decision support for policymakers in regard to the land consumption of transport activities. Due to the increasing pressure on vehicle parking, traffic jams and the housing crisis in large cities, it is important to use road space effectively. The primary objective of this paper is to review and evaluate the published research about the time-area concept, as well as proposing an evaluation method for the time-area requirements of vehicles used in last mile delivery such as pedestrian porters, bicycles, cargo bikes, sidewalk autonomous delivery robots (SADRs) and delivery vans. The time-area concept measures the size of an area occupied during a transport activity and the duration for which it is occupied for standing, as well as moving transport units. While most of the research applies the time-area concept to compare various modes of transport used to move people around a city, this paper focusses on moving parcels and evaluates the effect that operating strategies and policy changes have on the time-area requirements of a single mode of transport. The study builds on a real trip data set of parcel deliveries in London.

Download Full-text

Picture fuzzy WASPAS method for selecting last-mile delivery mode: a case study of Belgrade

European Transport Research Review ◽

10.1186/s12544-021-00501-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Vladimir Simić ◽

Dragan Lazarević ◽

Momčilo Dobrodolac

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

High Reliability ◽

Real Life ◽

Delivery Mode ◽

Uncertain Information ◽

Logistics Industry ◽

Last Mile ◽

Picture Fuzzy Set ◽

Last Mile Delivery

Abstract Background Last-mile delivery (LMD) is becoming more and more demanding due to an increasing number of users and traffic problems in cities. Besides, medical crises (like the COVID-19 outbreak) and air pollution represent additional motives for the transition from traditional to socially and environmentally sustainable LMD mode. An emerging problem for companies in the postal and logistics industry is how to determine the best LMD mode in a multi-criteria setting under uncertainty. Method For the first time, an extension of the Weighted Aggregated Sum Product ASsessment (WASPAS) method under the picture fuzzy environment is presented to solve the LMD mode selection problem. The introduced picture fuzzy set (PFS) based multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method can be highly beneficial to managers who are in charge of LMD since it can take into account the neutral/refusal information and efficiently deal with high levels of imprecise, vague, and uncertain information. The comparative analysis with the existing state-of-the-art PFS-based MCDM methods approved the high reliability of the proposed picture fuzzy WASPAS method. Its high robustness and consistency are also confirmed. The presented method can be used to improve LMD in urban areas worldwide. Besides, it can be applied to solve other emerging MCDM problems in an uncertain environment. Findings A real-life case study of Belgrade is presented to fully illustrate the potentials and applicability of the picture fuzzy WASPAS method. The results show that postomates are the best mode for LMD in Belgrade, followed by cargo bicycles, drones, traditional delivery, autonomous vehicles, and tube transport.

Download Full-text

A Disruption Recovery Problem with Time Windows Change in the Last Mile Delivery of Online Shopping

Mathematical Problems in Engineering ◽

10.1155/2018/2096416 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2018 ◽

pp. 1-10 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Li Jiang ◽

Changyong Liang ◽

Junfeng Dong ◽

Wenxing Lu ◽

Marko Mladenovic

Keyword(s):

Online Shopping ◽

Time Window ◽

Time Windows ◽

Home Delivery ◽

Delivery Mode ◽

Variable Neighborhood Descent ◽

Last Mile ◽

Last Mile Delivery ◽

Disruption Recovery ◽

Recovery Problem

Frequent time window changing disruptions result in high secondary delivery rates in the last mile delivery. With the rapid growth of parcel volumes in online shopping, the time window changing disruptions could translate to substantial delivery cost-wastes. In recent years, customer pickup (CP), a new delivery mode that allows customers to pick up their parcels from shared delivery facilities, has provided a new way to deal with such disruptions. This study proposed a disruption recovery problem with time windows change in the last mile delivery in which customers can be served through home delivery (HD) or CP. A variant variable neighborhood descent (VVND) algorithm was presented to solve the problem. Computational experiments based on a set of instances were tested, and results were compared with other heuristics in the literature, which have affirmed the competitiveness of the model and algorithm.

Download Full-text

PROSPECTS AND PROBLEMS OF ROBOTIC DELIVERY OF THE LAST MILE. THE RELEVANCE OF THE PROBLEM AND THE CONCEPT OF THE SOLUTION. PART I.

EurasianUnionScientists ◽

10.31618/esu.2413-9335.2021.2.92.1516 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 24-32

Author(s):

Yu. Khamukov ◽

M. Kanokova

Keyword(s):

New Technologies ◽

Freight Transportation ◽

Delivery Mode ◽

Air Cargo ◽

Technological Breakthrough ◽

Last Mile ◽

Human Labor ◽

New Thinking ◽

Last Mile Delivery ◽

Express Delivery

The express delivery market in recent years has been growing at the level of 3-4%, and even in these conditions, not only is it not saturated, but the demand for it is growing. According to Oxford Economics, the growth of the air cargo market, which determines the volume of the express delivery market, accelerated at times up to 7% per year from 2013 to 2018 [1]. The biggest changes took place in 2016-17 due to a technological breakthrough in the field of logistics with the introduction of services such as drone delivery, processing orders on the blockchain, calculation of the delivery mode using artificial intelligence, etc. It was expected that due to the growing demand on fast delivery guaranteed, the number of express delivery employees worldwide will grow to 4.5 million over the next few years. But the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated this process. In the study “The Future of Freight Transportation. How new technologies and new thinking can change the movement of goods”, presented by the international network of consulting companies Deloitte in 2017, states that carriers have already solved many of the problems associated with the transportation of goods. But the “last mile delivery” stage has remained limiting the development of the delivery service. At this stage, companies suffer losses due to the concentration of logistics, algorithmic and kinematic tasks that cannot be automated with modern means and technologies for replacing human labor. Consequently, the use of alternative, unconventional technologies at this stage is a key condition for the mass development of delivery.

Download Full-text