Speaker: Dr Joyce Zhang, OPTIMA-University of Melbourne

Courier route optimisation problems with loading bay information and reservation systems

The demand for parcel delivery in central city areas has been growing fast as a result of rapid urbanisation and the development of e-commerce. Finding efficient routes for couriers undertaking deliveries in those areas is becoming more challenging due to growing levels of congestion and difficulties in accessing loading bays. For a proficient urban distribution system, we study two major stakeholders: users (i.e., couriers) and resource providers (i.e., loading space management authorities, such as local councils).

From the couriers’ perspective, a two-echelon vehicle routing model was formulated, for which the two echelons deal with the design of driving and walking routes respectively. The model was solved by either mixed-integer programming (MIP) or a genetic algorithm (GA). Furthermore, a stochastic agent-based simulation model was developed to study the impacts of the uncertainty in loading bay availability and the benefits of providing couriers with the loading bay occupancy information. Numerical studies find that providing occupancy information can reduce vehicles circulation and searching for unoccupied loading bays and hence save delivery times. Such benefit is more pronounced when parking duration limits are lifted, which leads to better environmental performance.

From the management authorities’ perspective, a stochastic chance-constrained model was devised for the loading bay reservation problem integrated with the 2E-VRP to coordinate couriers. A hybrid GA-MIP was developed, which has the GA find the delivery routes and MIP determine the reservation grace times. The reservation system can guarantee the availability of loading bays for couriers, reduce the delivery uncertainty, and enhance service quality and reliability.

Lele Zhang is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Melbourne (UoM). She has a Bachelors Degree in Engineering (Southeast University, China), and a PhD in Operations Research (UoM). Her areas of expertise are broadly transport modelling and optimisation, traffic flow theory, Monte Carlo simulation, scheduling theory, Operations Research, and City Logistics. She is an Associate Investigator of ACEMS and a Chief Investigator of OPTIMA and is involved in Physical Internet Lab at UoM. She also has research collaborations with a number of industries in logistics, transport and healthcare, including Australia Post, Department of Transport Victoria.

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