Green last-mile route planning for efficient e-commerce distribution

Kunnapapdeelert Siwaporn (), Johnson James Vincent and Phalitnonkiat Passarin
Additional contact information
Kunnapapdeelert Siwaporn: Burapha University International College, Thailand
Johnson James Vincent: Burapha University International College, Thailand
Phalitnonkiat Passarin: Burapha University International College, Thailand

Engineering Management in Production and Services, 2022, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: This study aims to design vehicle routes based on cost minimisation and the minimisation of greenhouse gasses (GHG) emissions to help companies solve the vehicle routing problem with pickup and delivery (VRPPD) via particle swarm optimisation (PSO). An effective metaheuristics search technique called particle swarm optimisation (PSO) was applied to design the optimal route for these problems. Simulated data from Li and Lim (2001) were used to evaluate the PSO performance for solving green vehicle routing problems with pickup and delivery (Green VRPPD). The findings suggest that green vehicle routing problems with pickup and delivery should be used when distributing products to customers living in a specific area called a cluster. However, the design of vehicle routes by Green VRPPD costs more when used to distribute products to customers living randomly in a coverage service area. When logistics providers decide to use Green VRPPD instead of VRPPD, they need to be concerned about possible higher costs if an increase in the number of vehicles is needed. PSO has been confirmed for solving VRPPD effectively. The study compared the results based on the use of two different objective functions with fuel consumption from diesel and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). It indicates that solving VRPPD by considering the emissions of direct greenhouse gases as an objective function provides cleaner routes, rather than considering total cost as the objective function for all test cases. However, as Green VRPPD requires more vehicles and longer travel distances, this requires a greater total cost than considering the total cost as the objective function. Considering the types of fuels used, it is obvious that LPG is more environmentally friendly than diesel by up to 53.61 %. This paper should be of interest to a broad readership, including those concerned with vehicle routing problems, transportation, logistics, and environmental management. The findings suggest that green vehicle routing problems with pickup and delivery should be used when distributing products to a cluster. However, the design of vehicle routes by Green VRPPD costs more when used to distribute products to customers living randomly in a coverage service area. When logistics providers decide to use Green VRPPD instead of VRPPD, they need to be concerned about possible higher costs if an increase in the number of vehicles is needed.

Keywords: last-mile; routing; green; particle swarm optimisation; e-commerce (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2478/emj-2022-0001 (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:vrs:ecoman:v:14:y:2022:i:1:p:1-12:n:1

DOI: 10.2478/emj-2022-0001

Access Statistics for this article

Engineering Management in Production and Services is currently edited by Joanna Ejdys

More articles in Engineering Management in Production and Services from Sciendo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().