1. Proceedings
  2. I3M
  3. 2018
  4. HMS
  5. 10.46354/i3m.2018.hms.002

Agent-based simulation of restaurant deliveries facilitating cargo-bikes and urban consolidation

  • a,b Christian Fikar  , 
  • c Manfred Gronalt 
  • a, c University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Institute of Production and Logistics, Vienna, Austria
  • b Vienna University of Economics and Business, Institute for Production Management, Vienna, Austria
Cite as
C. Fikar, M. Gronalt (2018). Agent-based simulation of restaurant deliveries facilitating cargo-bikes and urban consolidation. Proceedings of the 20st International Conference on Harbor, Maritime and Multimodal Logistic Modeling & Simulation (HMS 2018), pp. 8-13. DOI: https://doi.org/10.46354/i3m.2018.hms.002

Abstract

Last-mile distribution in urban areas is challenged by congestion and restriction for motorized traffic. To support operations, this work investigate the impact of operating urban consolidation points and facilitating cargo-bikes for urban last-mile distribution. Motivated by sample setting originating from the food delivery industry, a decision support system combining agent-based simulation with heuristic optimization procedure is developed. It considers a logistics provider who performs the last-mile delivery for multiple competing restaurants in an urban area. Therefore, both demand and the availability of cargo-bikes, which are operated by freelancers, are subject to randomness. Computational experiments investigate the impact of the available amount of cargo-bike drivers as well as the number of operated consolidation points, highlighting the importance of facilitating simulation models to support operations in highly dynamic and uncertain settings.

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