2nd honour for paper co-authored by Xin Wang, Erick Delage and Okan Arslan
June 26, 2024
During the presentation of the Gilbert Laporte Student Paper Award at the 65th annual conference of the Canadian Operational Research Society (CORS), PhD student Xin Wang received an honourable mention for “Crowdkeeping in Last-mile Delivery”, which he co-authored with Professors Erick Delage and Okan Arslan.
This award recognizes exceptional scientific contributions to the theory, methodology and practice of operational research (OR) in transportation and logistics. The paper, which was published in Transportation Science, has received two honours in the past few weeks, having first won the 2023 Esdras Minville Award from HEC Montréal in May 2024.
Crowdkeeping delivery method
In order to improve the efficiency of the last-mile delivery system when customers are possibly absent for deliveries, the research team employs the crowd to work as keepers and to provide storage services for their neighbours. This management strategy offers more flexibility, availability and lower costs than fixed storage solutions such as automated lockers.
A bi-level program is proposed to optimize the assignment, routing and pricing decisions, while considering customer preferences, keeper behaviors, and operational efficiency. Results based on a real-world dataset from Amazon show that the crowdkeeping delivery system has the potential to generate higher profits due to its ability to consolidate shipments and to eliminate failed deliveries.
Xin Wang
Erick Delage
