Heuristic Method for Collaborative Parcel Delivery with Drone

Heuristic Method for Collaborative Parcel Delivery with Drone

Purpose – Drone delivery is expected to revolutionize the supply chain industry. This paper aims to introduce a collaborative parcel delivery problem by truck and drone (hereinafter called “TDRP”) and propose a novel heuristic method to solve the problem. Research design, data, and methodology – To show the effectiveness of collaborative delivery by truck and drone, we generate a toy problem composed of 9 customers and the speed of drone is assumed to be two times faster than truck. We compared the delivery completion times by ‘truck only’ case and ‘truck and drone’ case by solving the optimization problem respectively. Results – We provide literature reviews for truck and drone routing problem for collaborative delivery and propose a novel and original heuristic method to solve the problem with numerical example. By numerical example, collaborative delivery is expected to reduce delivery completion time by 12~33% than ‘truck only’ case. Conclusions – In this paper, we introduce the TDRP in order for collaborative delivery to be effective and propose a novel and original heuristic method to solve the problem. The results of research will be help to develop effective heuristic solution and optimize the parcel delivery by using drone.