EURO 2025 Leeds
Abstract Submission

1288. Assessing the Potential Economic and Environmental Benefits of Peer-to-Peer Crowdshipping

Invited abstract in session TC-59: Innovations for a Greener City and Sustainable Urban Logistics I, stream Transportation.

Tuesday, 12:30-14:00
Room: Liberty 1.14

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Emma Innocente
Operations and Information Systems (OIS), Université Catholique de Louvain
2. Jean-Sébastien Tancrez
CORE - Louvain School of Management, Université catholique de Louvain

Abstract

In recent years, crowdshipping has garnered attention as a potentially cost-effective and sustainable alternative to traditional delivery. Crowdshipping is a collaborative delivery system that outsources delivery tasks to ordinary citizens that act as non-professional couriers. In particular, peer-to-peer crowdshipping concerns intercity, and longer-distance deliveries carried out by car. By exploiting excess capacity in existing personal transport for the delivery of freight, crowdshipping is inclined to reduce the number of dedicated freight delivery trucks, reducing delivery costs and supporting sustainability. The impact of crowdshipping remains unclear due to the novelty and broad nature of the concept and the fact that existing crowdshipping platforms are continuously changing. Moreover, most studies on the impact of crowdshipping consider the matching between crowdshippers and parcels as an input in the experiments. However, it may affect the potential benefits of crowdshipping as it impacts the length of crowdshippers’ detours, and the number of parcels delivered through crowdshipping. We assess the potential economic and environmental benefits of peer-to-peer crowdshipping and highlight the parameters influencing those benefits. We address the matching of crowdshippers and parcels using a dynamic and stochastic assignment method based on Approximate Dynamic Programming with Value Function Approximation.

Keywords

Status: accepted

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