Managing Disruptions in Last Mile Distribution

This paper considers disruption management in last mile distribution of delivery items. The delivery area is split into districts. Districts, and tours within them, are fixed over a long period of time. The sequence of each tour, which starts and ends at the depot, is given. Delivery items arrive daily at the depot in predetermined sequences. While minor failures in the delivery process can be dealt with quickly, major failures (mechanical failure, staff shortage) can have severe impacts on the initially planned operational schedule. Vehicle operators are highly familiar with their own district only, and changes to the ordinary schedule should be kept low to avoid major rearrangement of the tours. In this contribution we present a reassignment problem that determines a back-up plan in the case of disruptions before delivery starts. This paper is motivated by the introduction of an electric vehicle fleet into the last mile.