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Balancing Risks and Monetary Savings When the Crowd is Involved in Pickups and Deliveries

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Innovative Intelligent Industrial Production and Logistics (IN4PL 2023)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1886))

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Abstract

The increasing number of requests in the last-mile delivery has led to the introduction of advanced technological solutions to enhance couriers’ services. In addition, innovative strategies like crowd-shipping have been introduced in order to create synergies within the territory and involve ordinary people in the transportation activity with the aim of reducing operational costs and pollution as well as of increasing the service level. We refer to a company that manages a crowd-shipping platform and provides transportation services within time windows through its own fleet of vehicles and occasional drivers. The service requests correspond to pairs of pickups and deliveries. The objective of the company is to maximize the profit by balancing risks and benefits, from an economic perspective, associated with the involvement of ordinary people in fulfilling service requests. We extend the pickup and delivery problem with occasional drivers and regular vehicles, introducing risk and compensation considerations. The computational analysis conducted through an optimization model shows how the use of occasional drivers reduces overall costs. Moreover, a series of managerial insights is provided thanks to a sensitivity analysis on the risk and compensation parameters associated with crowd-shipping service.

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Acknowledgement

The work of Annarita De Maio is partially supported by MUR (Italian Minister of University and Research) under the grant H25F21001230004. This support is gratefully acknowledged.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Statistics and Finance “Giovanni Anania”, University of Calabria, Rende, CS, Italy

    Annarita De Maio & Francesca Vocaturo

  2. Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering, University of Calabria, Rende, CS, Italy

    Roberto Musmanno

Authors
  1. Annarita De Maio
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  2. Roberto Musmanno
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  3. Francesca Vocaturo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Annarita De Maio .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Sergio Terzi

  2. University of Paris - EST Créteil, Créteil, France

    Kurosh Madani

  3. Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, MI, USA

    Oleg Gusikhin

  4. University of Lorraine, Nancy, France

    Hervé Panetto

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De Maio, A., Musmanno, R., Vocaturo, F. (2023). Balancing Risks and Monetary Savings When the Crowd is Involved in Pickups and Deliveries. In: Terzi, S., Madani, K., Gusikhin, O., Panetto, H. (eds) Innovative Intelligent Industrial Production and Logistics. IN4PL 2023. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1886. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49339-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49339-3_7

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