Modeling and optimizing a routing problem for an on-demand logistics service

This paper studies an optimization problem for a shipping company that provides an on-demand delivery service in which its customers visit a specified location called a delivery center to pick up their items themselves, rather than delivering the products purchased online to the customers directly. In this problem, we select delivery centers that are accessible for all customers and determine the optimal delivery route that minimizes the costs proportional to the distance traveled by the delivery vehicle and the delivery time. This is an extension of the traveling salesman problem with a time window constraint, which simultaneously determines the locations of the delivery centers for customer pickup and the delivery route. This paper also talks about sending products to customers by drones.