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Parcel Delivery Services: A Sectorization Approach with Simulation

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Operational Research (APDIO 2022)

Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Mathematics & Statistics ((PROMS,volume 437))

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Abstract

Sectorization problems, also known as districting or territory design, deal with grouping a set of previously defined basic units, such as points or small geographical areas, into a fixed number of sectors or responsibility areas. Usually, there are multiple criteria to be satisfied regarding the geographic characteristics of the territory or the planning purposes. This work addresses a case study of parcel delivery services in the region of Porto, Portugal. Using knowledge about the daily demand in each basic unit (7-digit postal code), the authors analysed data and used it to simulate dynamically new daily demands according to the relative frequency of service in each basic unit and the statistical distribution of the number of parcels to be delivered in each basic unit. The sectorization of the postal codes is solved independently considering two objectives (equilibrium and compactness) using Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II) implemented in Python.

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Notes

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Acknowledgements

This work is financed by the ERDF–European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization–COMPETE 2020 Programme and by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT–Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia within projects POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031671 and UIDB/05422/2020.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CEOS.PP, ISCAP, Polytechnic of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Cristina Lopes, Ana Maria Rodrigues & Cristina Teles Oliveira

  2. INESC TEC - Technology and Science, Porto, Portugal

    Ana Maria Rodrigues, Elif Ozturk, José Soeiro Ferreira & Pedro Rocha

  3. FEP.UP - Faculty of Economics, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Elif Ozturk

  4. FEUP - Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    José Soeiro Ferreira

  5. ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Ana Catarina Nunes

  6. CMAFcIO - Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Ana Catarina Nunes

Authors
  1. Cristina Lopes
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  2. Ana Maria Rodrigues
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  3. Elif Ozturk
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  4. José Soeiro Ferreira
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  5. Ana Catarina Nunes
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  6. Pedro Rocha
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  7. Cristina Teles Oliveira
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cristina Lopes .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics, Polytechnic Institute of Bragança and CeDRI, Bragança, Portugal

    João Paulo Almeida

  2. Algoritmi Research Center and LASI, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Filipe Pereira e Alvelos

  3. Department of Mathematics, Center for Mathematics and Applications, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Costa da Caparica, Portugal

    Jorge Orestes Cerdeira

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Samuel Moniz

  5. ISEG-Lisbon School of Economics and Management, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Cristina Requejo

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Lopes, C. et al. (2023). Parcel Delivery Services: A Sectorization Approach with Simulation. In: Almeida, J.P., Alvelos, F.P.e., Cerdeira, J.O., Moniz, S., Requejo, C. (eds) Operational Research. APDIO 2022. Springer Proceedings in Mathematics & Statistics, vol 437. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46439-3_9

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