Two-Stage Heuristic Algorithm Proposal for Urban E-Commerce Deliveries

Abstract

In today’s intensive competition conditions, it is an inevitable necessity for the companies operating in the e-commerce sector to manage their physical distribution processes efficiently and effectively. The most important step in e-commerce logistics processes is the last step delivery operations in the city. In order for these operations to be carried out quickly and efficiently, delivery vehicles and personnel must be optimally led. These problems, referred to as vehicle routing problem (VRP) in the literature, include determining the least cost routes that vehicles will cover to meet customer needs. In this study, the urban delivery problems of the enterprises operating in the online retail sector are examined. In line with these problems, VRP for urban e-commerce deliveries has been modified; open, multi-depot, distribution aggregation, time-window VRP is discussed. A mathematical model for the modified VRP has been developed and a new heuristic algorithm consisting of two stages has been developed for large-scale problems. The developed algorithm was tested on three different cases. The results are compared with the solution of the nearest neighbor method and the performance of the proposed algorithm is presented.