Operations Research 2025
Abstract Submission

200. Integrated Delivery Management and Vehicle Routing for Parcel Lockers

Invited abstract in session WE-1: Delivery problems, stream Mobility, Transportation, and Traffic.

Wednesday, 16:30-18:00
Room: Audimax

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Jim Schoppa
2. Robert Klein
Chair of Analytics & Optimization, University of Augsburg

Abstract

In light of labor shortages, rising fuel costs, and thin profit margins, providers of last-mile delivery services face mounting pressure to innovate. One avenue to more efficient last-mile operations is incorporating out-of-home delivery (OOHD) services. In particular, the delivery to parcel lockers, instead of customers’ homes, is becoming more popular. When operating a system of parcel lockers, the providers face a number of challenging decision problems, from the strategic to the operational level. On a specific day, they have to decide which parcels to deliver to which locker, which compartments to use, when to visit a locker, and which routes the delivery vehicles should take. This problem is challenging because parcels arrive at the depot throughout the day and may be assigned to a selection of lockers, lockers may have to be restocked several times a day, and the available capacities are stochastic depending on the customers' pickup behavior. In this talk, we discuss basic properties of the resulting decision problem, present a corresponding markov decision process, and provide possible strategies for the problem’s solution as well as preliminary numerical results.

Keywords

Status: accepted


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