Last-Mile Delivery Problem with Flexible Time and Location Options under Stochastic Customer Behavior

Other conference contribution, 2025

As the last-mile delivery problem is typically formulated as a variant of the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP), the interaction between retailers and customers—namely, the retailer's offering and the customer's confirmation—is often simplified or even overlooked. In many formulations, customers are treated as fixed points where parcels are dropped off, without explicitly modeling the offering and pricing process of retailers and the subsequent confirmation by customers. By neglecting these interactions and the uncertainty in customer behavior, models may underestimate the complexity of last-mile logistics and overlook opportunities to enhance delivery success and customer satisfaction.