Abstract On-demand logistics platform has been developed rapidly to respond increasingly customized demands. Many platform-based enterprises are facing difficulties in operating that resulting in inefficient resource allocation, high costs and top-down centralized decision-making process so that unsustainable on-demand delivery is an existing challenge. Such a platform service supply chain is highly influenced by fluctuating supply and demand. To solve this problem, this paper introduces an online double auction for on-demand pickup and delivery in the metropolitan cities, allowing both shippers and carriers dynamically enter and exit transactions. A multi-agent environment is created to automate the real-time auctioning through cyber-physical-system technologies. The proposed method aims at maximizing the social welfare and minimizing trade failures in the face of uncertainty of future agent types or the information of further bids and asks. The approach is extending the well-known McAfee’s single-unit method, to allocate multi-unit on-demand logistics tasks using public, private, robot-enabled delivery capacities. It is observed that truthful bidding is a dominant strategy for each agent under this mechanism while realizing budget balance and individual rationality. The results show that the designed auction is more suitable to employ if supply-demand unbalance exists, compared with the fixed pricing mechanism. It suggests using more crowdsourcing resources rather than private carriers to improve transaction efficiency and transportation sustainability.

中文翻译：

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网络物理系统支持的按需物流交易

摘要 按需物流平台发展迅速，以响应日益增长的定制化需求。很多平台型企业经营困难，资源配置效率低下，成本高，决策过程自上而下集中，不可持续的按需交付是存在的挑战。这样的平台服务供应链受供需波动的影响很大。为了解决这个问题，本文引入了大城市按需提货的在线双重拍卖，允许托运人和承运人动态进入和退出交易。创建了一个多代理环境，以通过网络物理系统技术自动进行实时拍卖。所提出的方法旨在在面对未来代理类型的不确定性或进一步出价和询价的信息时最大限度地提高社会福利并最大限度地减少贸易失败。该方法扩展了著名的 McAfee 的单单元方法，使用公共、私有、机器人支持的交付能力分配多单元按需物流任务。可以看出，在实现预算平衡和个体理性的同时，真实投标是该机制下每个代理的优势策略。结果表明，与固定定价机制相比，如果存在供需不平衡，设计拍卖更适合采用。它建议使用更多的众包资源而不是私人承运人来提高交易效率和运输可持续性。