{
  "id": "2109.08069",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2021-09-16T15:53:54.000Z",
  "updated": "2021-09-16T15:53:54.000Z",
  "title": "Metro stations as crowd-shipping catalysts: an empirical and computational study",
  "authors": [
    "Carlo Filippi",
    "Francesca Plebani"
  ],
  "comment": "20 pages, 11 figures",
  "categories": [
    "math.OC"
  ],
  "abstract": "Crowd-shipping is a promising shared mobility service that involves the delivery of goods using non-professional shippers. This service is mainly intended to reduce congestion and pollution in city centers but, as some authors observe, in most crowd-shipping initiatives the crowd rely on private motorized vehicles and hence the environmental benefits could be small, if not negative. Conversely, a crowd-shipping service relying on public transport should maximize the environmental benefits. Motivated by this observation, in this study we assess the potentials of crowd-shipping based on metro commuters in the city of Brescia, Italy. Our contribution is twofold. First, we analyze the results of a survey conducted among metro users to assess their willingness to act as crowd-shippers. The main result is that most young commuters and retirees are willing to be crowd-shippers even for a null reward. Second, we assess the potential economic impact of using metro-based crowd-shipping coupled with a traditional home delivery service. To this end, we formulate a variant of the VRP model where the customers closest to the metro stations may be served either by a conventional vehicle or by a crowd-shipper. The model is implemented using Python with Gurobi solver. A computational study based on the Brescia case is performed to get insights on the economic advantages that a metro-based crowd delivery option may have for a retailing company.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2021-09-16T15:53:54.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "metro stations",
      "computational study",
      "crowd-shipping catalysts",
      "environmental benefits",
      "traditional home delivery service"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 20,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}