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The cost of carrier consistency: Last-mile delivery by vehicle and drone for subscription-based orders

Author

Listed:
  • Amro M. El-Adle
  • Ahmed Ghoniem
  • Mohamed Haouari

Abstract

We investigate a deterministic last-mile delivery problem in which a firm delivering scheduled orders determines a subset of customers to be prioritized for drone delivery, relegating the rest to vehicle delivery. The vehicle and drone deliver in tandem over a planning horizon. The problem is amenable to a multi-day Traveling Salesman Problem with Drone, with consistency in the assignment of customers to each carrier across all days. We develop a mixed-integer program (MIP) that yields provably optimal solutions for instances having up to 40 customers over a 6-day horizon. We also devise a heuristic underpinned by the MIP to effectively and accurately prioritize customers for drone delivery. A computational study involving instances with up to 150 customers ordering over 6 days shows the matheuristic often matching the results of the proposed MIP, and also reveals a logistical burden of less than 0.5% on average over a solution lacking carrier consistency..

Suggested Citation

  • Amro M. El-Adle & Ahmed Ghoniem & Mohamed Haouari, 2024. "The cost of carrier consistency: Last-mile delivery by vehicle and drone for subscription-based orders," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 75(5), pages 821-840, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:tjorxx:v:75:y:2024:i:5:p:821-840
    DOI: 10.1080/01605682.2023.2210604
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