In this study, we introduce a logistic model for the delivery of small parcels to a set of service points (SPs), and we present effective methods for solving it. In the traditional delivery model, each recipient specifies a single location at which they wish to receive the parcel; however, when SPs are used, many recipients may have no strong preference among several locations, e.g., near the recipient’s home address, near the recipient’s office, or in the recipient’s favorite shopping mall. If some recipients are flexible and willing to provide the sender with more than one delivery location, it is possible to perform the delivery task at lower cost and within a shorter amount of time. Our solution methods are based on the concepts of the savings heuristic, the petal method and tabu search with a large neighborhood. An extensive numerical study is conducted to evaluate our solution methods and demonstrate the benefits of our model compared to the traditional nonflexible one. We also present a simulation study to demonstrate that our model can be adapted to a stochastic and dynamic environment.

中文翻译：

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灵活地将包裹交付给自动包裹储物柜：模型，解决方案方法和分析

在这项研究中，我们介绍了一种将小包裹运送到一组服务点（SP）的物流模型，并提出了解决问题的有效方法。在传统的送货模式中，每个收货人都指定一个他们希望接收包裹的位置；但是，当使用SP时，许多接收者可能在几个位置之间没有强烈的偏好，例如，在接收者的家庭住址附近，在接收者的办公室附近或在接收者最喜欢的购物商场中。如果某些收件人很灵活并且愿意为发件人提供一个以上的发送位置，则可以以较低的成本和更短的时间执行发送任务。我们的解决方案基于储蓄启发式，花瓣法和具有较大邻域的禁忌搜索的概念。进行了广泛的数值研究，以评估我们的求解方法，并证明我们的模型与传统的非弹性模型相比的优势。我们还提出了一项仿真研究，以证明我们的模型可以适应随机和动态环境。