In the article authored by Alexander Rave, Pirmin Fontaine, and Heinrich Kuhn, we developed a tactical planning model that decides on the cost-optimal vehicle fleet and the location of dedicated drone stations of a logistics service provider that minimizes total costs. The problem setting is modeled as a mixed-integer linear program. To solve larger instances we develop a specialized adaptive large neighborhood search. Our numerical study about parcel deliveries in rural areas show that a fleet mix of drones that start from trucks and dedicated drone stations lead to average cost savings of 33.3% compared to an only truck scenario and 14.1% if trucks and drones launched from trucks are considered for delivery.
The article is now available online. Click here