Multi-objective vaccine delivery problem considering low carbon and customer loss aversion

Abstract

The high energy consumption and on-time delivery requirements of vaccine last-mile delivery require us to rethink deeply about the vaccine delivery problem. First, using a fuel consumption model, we examine the main factors affecting vaccine distribution vehicles' fuel consumption and carbon emission. And then, we construct a delivery delay penalty function based on the characteristics of customer behavior for loss aversion. Second, we develop a dual-objective vaccine distribution model that includes minimizing the total logistics cost and minimizing the total distribution delay. Lastly, we design a new crossover mechanism of multi-population evolution and embed the simulated annealing criteria into the multi-objective algorithm. In numerical experiments, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our multi-objective algorithm in solving vaccine distribution problems of this type. Besides, the results show that we can scientifically configure the logistics route by reducing the usage of delivery vehicles without increasing fuel consumption while achieve to balance both logistics cost and delivery efficiency.