The Centralized Meal Service Delivery Mode

Abstract

Meal delivery with high delivery timeliness requirements in demand-intensive areas often leads to several issues such as chaotic terminal management and low efficiency during peak times, reducing consumer satisfaction and increasing complaints. This study constructs a dynamic model of meal delivery systems to analyse the operational models and centralized dispatching modes in Guangzhou University City, and applies an evolutionary game model to explore the decisions from the perspectives of government, meal suppliers, riders, and consumers. The study analyses how centralized dispatching mode affects the performance of delivery systems and its impact on the willingness of government, merchants, and riders to participate. The results indicate that demand-intensive areas, centralized dispatching modes have sustainable advantages in terms of cost and efficiency. The effectiveness is closely related to the intensity of government intervention (supervision and support), but weakly related to the timing of intervention. Consumer preferences, shaped by consumer type and perceived value, affect the benefits of participating in a centralized dispatch mode, but not the willingness of meal suppliers to participate. The evolutionary framework in this study provides valuable references for the quantitative evaluation of the meal delivery system, theoretical support for the decision-making of the participants of the meal delivery system, and a research framework for the relevant decision-making scenarios, so as to optimize the allocation of meal resources and promote the sustainable development of meal delivery.