Seminar Series

2024 - 2025

Speaker: Lingxiao Wu (Hong Kong Polytechnic University).

Title: “On Coordinated Drone-Courier Logistics for Intra-city Express Services ”.

joint with Shuiwang Chen (U ofHong Kong Polytechnic), Kai Wang and Wei Qi (both Tsinghua University)

 Date: Thursday, 30 January at 12h00 (Paris Time).

Abstract: Drones, despite being acknowledged as a transformative force in the city logistics sector, are unable to execute the last-meter delivery (unloading goods directly to customers‘ doorsteps) due to airspace restrictions and safety concerns. To leverage advancements and overcome the limitations of drones in providing intra-city express services, we introduce a coordinated drone-courier logistics system where drones operate within a closed network among vertiports, while couriers connect customers to the drone delivery system. This paper aims to shed light on this coordinated system in terms of system feasibility, network interactivity, and long-term sustainability. Methodology/Results: We develop an integrated optimization model to optimize the network planning of the coordinated logistics system. The interplay between network planning and tactical operations is mirrored by a queueing network model, resulting in the nonlinear and nonconvex (partially convex and partially concave) feasible region of the optimization model. An iterative exact algorithm that tightens lower and upper bounds by adaptively refining the linear approximations of nonlinear constraints is developed to provide optimality-guaranteed solutions with finite convergence. The computational experiments demonstrate the scalability and robustness of our algorithm across various network configurations and scenarios. Managerial implications: The case study, based on a real-world dataset from SF Express, a logistics giant in China, validates that the coordinated logistics system efficiently attains cost and time savings by leveraging the effective turnover of drones and the coordination between drones and couriers. The optimal network design features a concentrated structure, streamlining demand consolidation and reducing deadhead repositioning. Vertiport selection is based not only on attractiveness to demands but also on geographical competitiveness. Moving forward, maintaining enduring cost and time savings necessitates a dual focus on advancing drone technologies and reducing courier delivery expenses.

Here is a link to the speaker’s and the FEELab website:

https://sites.google.com/view/lingxiaowu/home

https://sites.google.com/view/feelabtbs/

You are cordially invited to participate in the following seminar of the FEELab, which will take place in Room 321, Lascrosses building.

For more information, please contact: Pierre Mella-Barral p.mella-barral@tbs-education.fr or Cam Ly TRAN cam-ly.tran@tbs_education.fr