Optimization and Machine Learning Applied to Last-Mile Logistics: A Review

Abstract

The growth in e-commerce that our society has faced in recent years is changing the view companies have on last-mile logistics, due to its increasing impact on the whole supply chain. New technologies are raising users’ expectations with the need to develop customized delivery experiences; moreover, increasing pressure on supply chains has also created additional challenges for suppliers. At the same time, this phenomenon generates an increase in the impact on the liveability of our cities, due to traffic congestion, the occupation of public spaces, and the environmental and acoustic pollution linked to urban logistics. In this context, the optimization of last-mile deliveries is an imperative not only for companies with parcels that need to be delivered in the urban areas, but also for public administrations that want to guarantee a good quality of life for citizens. In recent years, many scholars have focused on the study of logistics optimization techniques and, in particular, the last mile. In addition to traditional optimization techniques, linked to the disciplines of operations research, the recent advances in the use of sensors and IoT, and the consequent large amount of data that derives from it, are pushing towards a greater use of big data and analytics techniques—such as machine learning and artificial intelligence—which are also in this sector. Based on this premise, the aim of this work is to provide an overview of the most recent literature advances related to last-mile delivery optimization techniques; this is to be used as a baseline for scholars who intend to explore new approaches and techniques in the study of last-mile logistics optimization. A bibliometric analysis and a critical review were conducted in order to highlight the main studied problems, the algorithms used, and the case studies. The results from the analysis allow the studies to be clustered into traditional optimization models, machine learning approaches, and mixed methods. The main research gaps and limitations of the current literature are assessed in order to identify unaddressed challenges and provide research suggestions for future approaches.