Yanlu Zhao’s research while affiliated with Durham University and other places

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Publications (1)


Synchronized Deliveries with a Bike and a Self-Driving Robot
  • Article

December 2023

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36 Reads

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2 Citations

Transportation Science

Yanlu Zhao

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Ningxuan Kang

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Roberto Roberti

Online e-commerce giants are continuously investigating innovative ways to improve their practices in last-mile deliveries. Inspired by the current practices at JD.com (the largest online retailer by revenue in China), we investigate a delivery problem that we call the traveling salesman problem with bike and robot (TSPBR), where a cargo bike is aided by a self-driving robot to deliver parcels to customers in urban areas. We present two mixed-integer linear programming models and describe a set of valid inequalities to strengthen their linear relaxation. We show that these models can yield optimal solutions of TSPBR instances with up to 60 nodes. To efficiently find heuristic solutions, we also present a genetic algorithm based on a dynamic programming recursion that efficiently explores large neighborhoods. We computationally assess this genetic algorithm on instances provided by JD.com and show that high-quality solutions can be found in a few minutes of computing time. Finally, we provide some managerial insights to assess the impact of deploying the bike-and-robot tandem to deliver parcels in the TSPBR setting.

Citations (1)


... JD.com, and SF Express (sf-express.com) have undertaken substantial efforts in pilot projects for drone-based instant deliveries [3]. Amazon and Google have invested in developing instant-delivery drone technology [4]. ...

Reference:

Drone-Based Instant Delivery Hub-and-Spoke Network Optimization
Synchronized Deliveries with a Bike and a Self-Driving Robot
  • Citing Article
  • December 2023

Transportation Science