G-2025-38
Optimizing ultra-fast delivery networks and service guarantees under uncertainty
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Ultra-fast delivery revolutionizes food and grocery services, with several companies advertising delivery times under 15 to 30 minutes. Motivated by the multi-billion-dollar industry that has emerged in recent years within the delivery business, we investigate the network design problem for ultra-fast delivery services. This involves decisions on micro-depot locations and customer allocations, considering various service guarantee levels. We develop robust probabilistic envelope-constrained (PEC) programs to handle uncertainties in travel times and customer order arrivals, and jointly optimize the protection level to avoid both excessive risk and conservatism. To enhance the tractability of PEC models, we derive their equivalent semi-infinite linear programs and propose inner and outer approximations with a finite number of linear constraints. We validate the accuracy of these approximations through extensive experiments using real-world data from Amazon and the Google API, along with a comparative study of different formulations. Varying service levels in ultra-fast delivery affect profitability and reliability, contingent on service level definitions and compliance probabilities of these guaranteed service levels. We find that a daily service level with multi-layer partial protection outperforms other policies studied, offering higher profitability and only mild service level violations. This strategy enables profitable and reliable ultra-fast delivery without over-committing or under-delivering, regardless of ordering times or traffic conditions. Additionally, offering ultra-fast services in rural areas is more challenging due to dispersed customers, longer travel distances, and greater delay risks.
Paru en mai 2025 , 37 pages
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