Comparing home and parcel lockers’ delivery systems: a math-heuristic approach

E-commerce is a continuously growing sector worldwide, with important repercussions on the delivery system in urban areas and especially Business to Consumer (B2C) sector. The of package consumer’s address involves not only high costs for couriers (greater number kilometres travelled), but also increased congestion greater environmental pollution volume pollutants released into air). To rationalize deliveries use collection points, equipped lockers, store goods that users have ordered has been considered literature. This work compares two alternative options: home versus Lockers. make this comparison we used cluster first route second math-heuristic approach. In clustering phase, experimented new function, while routing phase consists solving an instance Traveling Salesman Problem each generated cluster. Finally, applied real case (the Italian municipality Dolo near Venice) compared alternatives. We evaluate performance considering different fleets vehicles, small medium capacity. addition, since additional trips might be performed by consumers pick up parcels at Lockers, sensitivity analysis was carried out analyse sustainability proposed city logistics scheme.