Evaluation of a Team-Based Collection and Delivery Operation

Toshihiro Osaragi (), Yuya Taguchi, Narushige Shiode and Shino Shiode
Additional contact information
Toshihiro Osaragi: Department of Architecture and Building Engineering, School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan
Yuya Taguchi: Department of Architecture and Building Engineering, School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan
Narushige Shiode: Department of Geography, Geology and the Environment, Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames KT1 2EE, UK
Shino Shiode: Department of Geography, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX, UK

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 11, 1-24

Abstract: The rise in the volume of e -commerce is adding increasing pressure on the logistics of parcel delivery. To improve the efficiency of their operations, the parcel industry in Japan is exploring team-based collection and delivery (TCD), whereby the sales driver (SD) hands out parcels to the field crews (FC), who subsequently deliver them to the door. However, the efficiency of TCD is still understudied. This study proposes a method for optimizing the delivery route for TCD and evaluates the efficiency of the ongoing operation. The TCD delivery problem focuses on minimizing the task completion time using parameters derived through surveys of the actual operations. Comparison between seven different methods show that the newly proposed method of fuzzy c -means clustering with a genetic algorithm outperforms the rest, rapidly computing sufficiently accurate results. Results suggest that the proposed optimal route reduces the total delivery time by up to 18.7%. However, the amount of time saved varies considerably by the area and the number of parcels delivered. Additional constraints for improving driver safety, the cost-benefit of increasing FCs, and the impact on the environmental cost are also considered. The proposed method also helps spread the workload and the travel time of the FCs more evenly, thus further reducing the total delivery time.

Keywords: delivery operation; optimisation; parcel industry; team-based delivery; travelling salesperson problem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/11/9117/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/11/9117/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:11:p:9117-:d:1164376

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().