Nowadays, the depopulation of Europe’s rural areas and the ageing of the population in these areas has led to the disappearance of basic services such as supermarkets, fishmongers, household goods, etc. In response to this problem, there are European and local initiatives to mitigate these effects by investing in Internet and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure and logistics services for these areas with the aim of moving services to these isolated areas. The problem with these services lies in the difficulty of the use of ICT by aged people due to digital divide and, at the same time, the high cost in human resources, time, vehicles, and fuel presented by delivery services in these areas. This work presents a system that combines the use of intelligent personal assistants (IPA) to facilitate access to information technology for aged people to place orders and the optimization of delivery routes in a rural environment by a socially-oriented logistics company. This work presents a case study based on the fixed delivery routes of a social logistics company and describes how the proposed system could help in the optimization of routes and the reception of orders by the elderly via ICTs thanks to the use of IPAs. Subsequent to the study, route cost savings have been observed as well as the homogeneity of the cost of the routes it can provide compared to a static and predefined fixed route planning. This study also shows how the IPAs make possible the reception of orders in real time placed by the older adults from their homes. This work is aimed at improving the sustainability of services in depopulated rural areas while saving costs for the logistics companies that perform these services.

中文翻译：

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偏远农村物流企业语音助手及路线优化系统

如今，欧洲农村地区的人口减少和这些地区的人口老龄化导致超市、鱼贩、家庭用品等基本服务消失。针对这一问题，欧洲和地方都采取了缓解措施通过投资于这些地区的互联网和通信技术 (ICT) 基础设施和物流服务，旨在将服务转移到这些孤立的地区，从而产生这些影响。这些服务的问题在于，由于数字鸿沟，老年人难以使用信息通信技术，同时这些地区的送货服务在人力、时间、车辆和燃料方面的成本很高。这项工作提出了一个系统，该系统结合了智能个人助理 (IPA) 的使用，以促进老年人使用信息技术下订单，并由一家面向社会的物流公司优化农村环境中的送货路线。这项工作展示了一个基于社会物流公司固定交付路线的案例研究，并描述了所提出的系统如何通过使用 IPA 来帮助优化路线和老年人通过 ICT 接收订单。在研究之后，与静态和预定义的固定路线规划相比，已经观察到路线成本节省以及它可以提供的路线成本的同质性。这项研究还展示了 IPA 如何让老年人在家中实时接收订单成为可能。