Sustainable e-grocery home delivery: an optimization model considering on-demand vehicles

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorTudisco, Vittoria
dc.contributor.authorPerotti, Sara
dc.contributor.authorEkren, Banu Yetkin
dc.contributor.authorAktas, Emel
dc.date.accessioned2025-01-23T10:01:05Z
dc.date.available2025-01-23T10:01:05Z
dc.date.freetoread2025-01-23
dc.date.issued2025-03
dc.date.pubOnline2025-01-17
dc.description.abstractThe e-grocery sector has experienced a significant boost since the COVID-19 pandemic, dramatically changing consumer buying behaviours. As demand for faster and more efficient delivery options grows, e-grocery retailers face increasing pressure to optimize home delivery operations. Collaborations with third-party logistics providers (3PLs), although still overlooked, have emerged as promising, offering operational flexibility and environmental benefits. This work introduces an optimization model that supports the design of an on-demand delivery fleet conjunctly with delivery routings and schedules, while considering both cost and environmental impact. To this aim, a vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) is extended to incorporate on-demand fleet design and three different objective functions embodying a cost-efficient, an environmentally-effective and a cost-environmental balanced perspective respectively. Numerical experiments based on an Italian case study show that prioritizing environmental objectives reduces emissions by over 90%, with marginal increases in annual costs. Besides, on-demand vehicles enable flexibility that facilitates the adoption of sustainable delivery options without requiring challenging investments such as delivery fleet. Several contributions are provided: insights into using on-demand vehicles are proposed; a mathematical model jointly optimizing fleet design and delivery routing and scheduling, while considering both costs and environmental objectives, is developed and its practical application is demonstrated using real-world data. The findings highlight the significant impact of environmental considerations on fleet composition and operational efficiency, offering actionable strategies for e-retailers to reduce emissions while maintaining service quality.
dc.description.journalNameComputers & Industrial Engineering
dc.identifier.citationTudisco V, Perotti S, Ekren BY, Aktas E. (2025) Sustainable e-grocery home delivery: an optimization model considering on-demand vehicles. Computers & Industrial Engineering, Volume 201, March 2025, Article number 110874
dc.identifier.elementsID562368
dc.identifier.issn0360-8352
dc.identifier.paperNo110874
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2025.110874
dc.identifier.urihttps://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/23422
dc.identifier.volumeNo201
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherElsevier
dc.publisher.urihttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360835225000191?via%3Dihub
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 Internationalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subject40 Engineering
dc.subject12 Responsible Consumption and Production
dc.subjectIndustrial Engineering & Automation
dc.subject40 Engineering
dc.subject46 Information and computing sciences
dc.subject49 Mathematical sciences
dc.subjectE-grocery
dc.subjectHome delivery
dc.subjectOn-demand vehicle
dc.subjectOn-demand fleet
dc.subjectLast-mile delivery
dc.subjectSustainable logistics
dc.titleSustainable e-grocery home delivery: an optimization model considering on-demand vehicles
dc.typeArticle
dcterms.dateAccepted2025-01-07

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Sustainable_e-grocery_home-2025.pdf
Size:
5.07 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.63 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download

Collections

Staff publications (SoM)