• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.89-99
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• 2012

In this paper, we deal with the dual-depot heterogeneous vehicle routing problem with simultaneous delivery and pick up(DH-VRPSDP) in reverse logistics. The DH-VRPSDP is a problem of designing vehicle routes in a day of given vehicle to minimize the sum of fixed cost and variable cost over the planning horizon. Each customer can be visited only once according to the service combinations of that customer. Due to the complexity of the problem, we suggest a heuristic algorithm in which an initial solution is obtained by changing the customer and the vehicle simultaneously and then it is improved. A performance of the proposed algorithm was compared to both well-known results and new test problems.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.75-96
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• 2016

This paper investigates the usefulness of drones in an urban delivery system. We define the vehicle and drone routing problem with time window (VDRPTW) and present a model that can describe a dual mode delivery system consisting of drones and vehicles in the metropolitan area. Drones are relatively free from traffic congestion but have limited flight range and capacity. Vehicles are not free from traffic congestion, and the complexity of urban road network reduces the efficiency of vehicles. Using drones and vehicles together can reduce inefficiency of the urban delivery system because of their complementary cooperation. In this paper, we assume that drones operate in a point-to-point manner between the depot and customers, and that customers in the need of fast delivery are willing to pay additional charges. For the experiment datasets, we use instances of Solomon (1987), which are well known in the Vehicle Routing Problem society. Moreover, to mirror the urban logistics demand trend, customers who want fast delivery are added to the Solomon's instances. We propose a hybrid evolutionary algorithm for solving VDRPTW. The experiment results provide different useful insights according to the geographical distributions of customers. In the instances where customers are randomly located and in instances where some customers are randomly located while others form some clusters, the dual mode delivery system displays lower total cost and higher customer satisfaction. In instances with clustered customers, the dual mode delivery system exhibits narrow competition for the total cost with the delivery system that uses only vehicles. In this case, using drones and vehicles together can reduce the level of dissatisfaction of customers who take their cargo over the time-window. From the view point of strategic flexibility, the dual mode delivery system appears to be more interesting. In meeting the objective of maximizing customer satisfaction, the use of drones and vehicles incurs less cost and requires fewer resources.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.167-178
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• 2019

In this paper, we study the multi-objectives vehicle and drone routing problem with time windows, MOVDRPTW for short, which is defined in an urban delivery network. We consider the dual modal delivery system consisting of drones and vehicles. Drones are used as a complement to the vehicle and operate in a point to point manner between the depot and the customer. Customers make various requests. They prefer to receive delivery services within the predetermined time range and some customers require fast delivery. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of the delivery strategy of using drones and vehicles together with a multi-objective measures. As experiment datasets, we use the instances generated based on actual courier delivery data. We propose a hybrid multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for solving MOVDRPTW. Our results confirm that the vehicle-drone mixed strategy has 30% cost advantage over vehicle only strategy.