EURO 2024 Copenhagen
Abstract Submission

EURO-Online login

743. An exact method for the Single Drone-Truck Routing Problem

Invited abstract in session WD-56: Last mile delivery with drones, stream Transportation.

Wednesday, 14:30-16:00
Room: S04 (building: 101)

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Jahir Llagas
Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University
2. Marcel Turkensteen
CORAL, Economics, Aarhus University
3. Sanne Wøhlk
Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University

Abstract

In urban logistics, the integration of drones with traditional delivery methods presents a promising avenue for improving efficiency and sustainability. This study addresses the optimization of last-mile deliveries by a single drone-truck system. Similar to the vehicle routing problem (VRP), the objective is to minimize travel cost of the travel time while serving all clients exactly once. The vehicle routing problem with drones (VRPD) presents the drone as an additional delivery vehicle that the truck can pick up and transport. This problem involves a network composed of clients, a depot, and dock hubs. The drone can take off from the truck at any vertex, visit at most as many clients as the number of its compartments, and must land at a dock hub, where the truck can pick it up again. Moreover, the drone's battery capacity must be considered on each trip. In this project, we will increase the drone's autonomy by allowing it to visit dock hubs as battery swapping points during a trip (increasing its driving range) and by including cross-docking. The cross-docking process allows the truck to leave products at the dock hubs, where the drone will visit, pick up the products, and start a new trip. We propose an exact approach to solving the problem and present preliminary results.

Keywords

Status: accepted

Back to the list of papers