FLEXIBLE PARCEL DELIVERY TO AUTOMATED PARCEL LOCKERS: MODELS, SOLUTION METHODS AND ANALYSIS

In this study, we introduce a logistic model that is suited for the delivery of small parcels to a set of service points (SPs), and we present effective methods for solving it. In the traditional delivery model, each recipient specifies a single location where they wish to receive the parcel; however, when using SPs, many recipients may be indifferent between several locations, e.g., near their home address, near their office, or in their favorite shopping mall. If some of the recipients are flexible and willing to provide the sender with more than one delivery location, it is possible to perform the delivery task with lower costs and in a shorter amount of time. Our solution methods are based on the ideas of the saving heuristic, petal method and tabu search with a large neighborhood. An extensive numerical study is conducted to evaluate our solution methods and demonstrate the benefits of our model compared to the traditional nonflexible one. We also present a simulation study to demonstrate that our model can be adapted to a stochastic and dynamic environment.