Abstract
Alongside the rise of ‘last-mile’ delivery in contemporary urban logistics, drones have demonstrate commercial potential, given their outstanding triple-bottom-line performance. However, as a lithium-ion battery-powered device, drones’ social and environmental merits can be overturned by battery recycling and disposal. To maintain economic performance, yet minimise environmental negatives, fleet sharing is widely applied in the transportation field, with the aim of creating synergies within industry and increasing overall fleet use. However, if a sharing platform’s transparency is doubted, the sharing ability of the platform will be discounted. Known for its transparent and secure merits, blockchain technology provides new opportunities to improve existing sharing solutions. In particular, the decentralised structure and data encryption algorithm offered by blockchain allow every participant equal access to shared resources without undermining security issues. Therefore, this study explores the implementation of a blockchain-enabled fleet sharing solution to optimise drone operations, with consideration of battery wear and disposal effects. Unlike classical vehicle routing with fleet sharing problems, this research is more challenging, with multiple objectives (i.e., shortest path and fewest charging times), and considers different levels of sharing abilities. In this study, we propose a mixed-integer programming model to formulate the intended problem and solve the problem with a tailored branch-and-price algorithm. Through extensive experiments, the computational performance of our proposed solution is first articulated, and then the effectiveness of using blockchain to improve overall optimisation is reflected, and a series of critical influential factors with managerial significance are demonstrated.
Highlights
Alongside the rise of ‘last-mile’ delivery in contemporary urban logistics, drone delivery has rapidly developed and provides ever-increasing applications, given its outstanding triplebottom-line performance
The findings summarised two types of drone/truck tandem scheduling problems—the flying sidekick travelling salesman problem (FSTSP) and parallel drone scheduling travelling salesman problem (PDSTSP)—to improve the operation of drone-and-truck coordination
This study considers a drone routing problem (DRP) with blockchain-enabled fleet sharing among multiple operators, which we define as a DRPBFS problem
Summary
Alongside the rise of ‘last-mile’ delivery in contemporary urban logistics, drone delivery has rapidly developed and provides ever-increasing applications, given its outstanding triplebottom-line performance. Optimising the lithium-ion battery charging plan is crucial for prolonging its lifespan, and will help mitigate battery disposal-caused environmental consequences This explains the prevalence of relevant initiatives introduced in the electric vehicle industry (e.g., Pelletier et al, 2017; Yang & Sun, 2015). Given that drone delivery is highly constrained by load capacity, battery capacity and infrastructure resources, any subtle increase in the shared resources could make a significant difference It makes both economical and practical sense to manage drone operations on a blockchain-enabled sharing system. This study aimed to support operations managers in facilitating sustainable supply chain development by optimising the delivery route and extending drone battery lifespan through a blockchain-enabled drone sharing approach.
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