Decomposition matheuristics for last mile delivery using public transportation systems: Decomposition matheuristics for last mile delivery...: M. P. Mandal, C. Archetti.

This study explores the potential of using public transportation systems for freight delivery, where we intend to utilize the spare capacities of public vehicles like buses, trams, metros, and trains, particularly during off-peak hours, to transport packages within the city instead of using dedicated delivery vehicles. The study contributes to the growing literature on innovative strategies for performing sustainable last mile deliveries. We study an operational level problem called the Three-Tier Delivery Problem on Public Transportation, where packages are first transported from the Consolidation and Distribution Center (CDC) to nearby public vehicle stations by delivery trucks, comprising the first tier of the problem. In the second tier, the public vehicles pick them up from the stops and transport them into the city area. The last leg, or the third tier of the delivery, is performed to deliver the packages to their respective customers using green vehicles or eco-friendly systems. We propose mixed-integer linear programming formulations to study the transport of packages from the CDC to the customers and employ decomposition-based matheuristics to solve them. We have three decomposition approaches based on the order of solving the tiers, resulting from the tier we start solving the problem from. We use a heuristic methodology to link the tiers by coordinating the flow of packages between them, and utilize CPLEX to solve the individual tiers. We provide numerical experiments to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the system. Our results show that this system has the potential to reduce the length of trips performed by traditional delivery trucks by 85.91%, thereby reducing the negative social and environmental impacts of existing last mile delivery systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]