Crowdsourcing for Last-Mile Delivery: Design, Planning, and Operation

To cope with the challenges of increasingly shorter delivery times, higher volumes, and more volatile demand, retailers are turning to innovative solutions. Among these is an increased reliance on crowdsourcing for last mile delivery -- the most expensive and challenging leg of the delivery process. However, there is limited research on the effective design, planning, and operation of a crowd-based last mile delivery system. The goal of this project is (1) to lay out the theoretical foundation for how such systems should be designed and managed, (2) to develop data-driven algorithms to support the real word implementation of these systems, and (3) to test and validate these algorithm using real world data from two major online retailers: Target in the US and JD.COM in China.

• Record URL:
  http://cts.umn.edu/Research/ProjectDetail.html?id=2021022

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $45361
• Contract Numbers:

  CTS #2021022

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Center for Transportation Studies

  University of Minnesota
  500 Washington Avenue SE, TSB 200
  Minneapolis, MN  United States  55118
• Performing Organizations:

  University of Minnesota

  Industrial and Systems Engineering
  100 Union Street SE
  Minneapolis, MN  United States  55455
• Principal Investigators:

  Benjaafar, Saif

• Start Date: 20200701
• Expected Completion Date: 20211231
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Algorithms; Crowdsourcing; Delivery service; Electronic commerce; Implementation; Retail trade; System design; Validation
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Freight Transportation; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01748038
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
• Contract Numbers: CTS #2021022
• Files: RIP
• Created Date: Aug 17 2020 11:37AM