Urban case studies on optimized truck-drone last-mile distribution

Evaluating an urban/sub-urban freight transport system with targeted drone sorties from and in addition to delivery trucks at the micro level, we present a computational application of a single-truck, multiple-drones routing problem with self-developed heuristics for a set of real urban networks using a program solver. Results from five cities worldwide demonstrate by example that the new approach – compared to optimum road-based delivery – is more carbon and cost efficient, as it can save 43 to 51% in delivery time at a scale of 20 customer nodes. Further to this, a quantitative analysis of the impact of customer node aggregation and varying drone-to-truck speed ratios on the profitability and negative externalities of the collaborative delivery system is posed. In effect, the solution quality increases at a lower computational effort.