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A Model of Residential Mail Delivery by Drones

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Book cover Modeling and Optimization: Theory and Applications (MOPTA 2017)

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Abstract

This paper proposes and analyzes a model of mail delivery in mid-size Canadian urban areas consisting of retrofitting current delivery trucks with a limited number of drones, which can be flown to a number of addresses in a given urban area. Such a truck would then travel between specific locations (called truck-stops), where drone deployment would be executed from. The designated truck-stops are outputs of a proposed algorithm that uses delivery demand data and drone characteristics; they change depending on the needed delivery coverage on a given day. We discuss whether this delivery method could be used in different types of urban areas, where the time to delivery to customers can be shortened, as compared to classic door-to-door delivery.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Here, we take the height difference between red column in lower left panel of Fig. 3 and the height of the \(N_d=6\) blue column in the same panel.

  2. 2.

    For instance, we found an estimated cost for Amazon prime of $0.88 per delivery or of $0.24 for a delivery of a 2 kg package over 10 km, but the latter drones [26] also had docking stations which would not be needed here.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) under Discovery Grant [number 400684] of first author, under Discovery Grant [number 400551] of the 2nd author and an NSERC USRA award for undergraduate students (3rd author).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada

    Monica G. Cojocaru, Edward W. Thommes & Sierra Gillies

Authors
  1. Monica G. Cojocaru
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  2. Edward W. Thommes
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  3. Sierra Gillies
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Correspondence to Monica G. Cojocaru .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA

    János D. Pintér

  2. Dept of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA

    Tamás Terlaky

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Cojocaru, M.G., Thommes, E.W., Gillies, S. (2019). A Model of Residential Mail Delivery by Drones. In: Pintér, J.D., Terlaky, T. (eds) Modeling and Optimization: Theory and Applications. MOPTA 2017. Springer Proceedings in Mathematics & Statistics, vol 279. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12119-8_1

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