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Logistics Management pp 313–324Cite as

Anticipatory Planning for Courier, Express and Parcel Services

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Logistics ((LNLO))

Abstract

In recent years, the number of challenges for courier, express and parcel services has grown. Today, service providers deal with dynamic changes and uncertainty. Customers can request service at any point of time in the whole service region. Technologies like Global Positioning Systems allow a more detailed and dynamic routing. Furthermore, historical data can be used to anticipate future events. To tackle the new challenges and to utilize the new resources, we suggest modeling customer locations as spatial random variables. This allows a more detailed and therefore efficient routing and decision making. Nevertheless, it requires more complex methods to anticipate future demands, because the straightforward application of graph theoretical approaches is not possible. For an exemplary problem setting in the Euclidean Plane (EP), we introduce a new anticipatory cost benefit heuristic (CBH). Additionally, we adjust techniques of approximate dynamic programming (ADP) and compare the results of CBH and ADP with a myopic approach and an optimal ex post solution. Here, both ADP and CBH outperform the myopic approach.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), individual proposal “Antizipierende Tourenplanung durch Approximative Dynamische Programmierung”, reference number MA 1937/8-1, 577804. This support is gratefully acknowledged.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Decision Support Group, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Mühlenpfordtstr. 23, 38106, Braunschweig, Germany

    Marlin W. Ulmer, Jan Brinkmann & Dirk C. Mattfeld

Authors
  1. Marlin W. Ulmer
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  2. Jan Brinkmann
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  3. Dirk C. Mattfeld
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marlin W. Ulmer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Applied Sciences, Bremen, Germany

    Jan Dethloff

  2. ISL - Institut für Seeverkehrswirtschaft und Logistik, Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Hans-Dietrich Haasis

  3. Dept. of Logistics, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Herbert Kopfer

  4. University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Herbert Kotzab

  5. University of Bremen, Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Jörn Schönberger

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Ulmer, M.W., Brinkmann, J., Mattfeld, D.C. (2015). Anticipatory Planning for Courier, Express and Parcel Services. In: Dethloff, J., Haasis, HD., Kopfer, H., Kotzab, H., Schönberger, J. (eds) Logistics Management. Lecture Notes in Logistics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13177-1_25

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13177-1_25

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-13176-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-13177-1

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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