The proliferation of e-commerce and the progress of communication technology has led to the emergence and establishment of new business models in last-mile delivery. In attended home delivery, e.g., the customer and the provider agree on a certain delivery time window for a certain day, in which the provider promises delivery. In same-day delivery, e.g., the customer expects to receive the delivery on short notice, i.e., within a few hours. These new business models have in common that they come along with very high customer expectations regarding offered services, delivery speed, and the accuracy of shipping notifications. As a consequence, managing last-mile delivery has evolved from optimizing fulfillment operations alone to, additionally, steering demand, i.e., to integrate demand management and vehicle routing. Therewith, providers are able to steer customer choices toward efficient delivery options and, at the same time, realize higher prices for some delivery options such that additional revenue can be generated. However, despite its high relevance, neither in the scientific literature nor in the common industrial practice there exists a common understanding of such integrated demand management and vehicle routing problems (i-DMVRPs) or a respective modeling framework. Furthermore, there is no integrative and anticipatory solution approach for an i-DMVRP in a same-day delivery setting. This dissertation is a comprehensive contribution to the research on i-DVMRPs by closing those research gaps. In particular, in this dissertation, a detailed but general definition of i-DMVRPs is derived from literature and practice and a respective modeling framework is developed and discussed analytically. Further, in this dissertation, the first integrative and anticipatory solution approach for an i-DMVRP in a same-day delivery context is developed, presented, and evaluated comprehensively.
«The proliferation of e-commerce and the progress of communication technology has led to the emergence and establishment of new business models in last-mile delivery. In attended home delivery, e.g., the customer and the provider agree on a certain delivery time window for a certain day, in which the provider promises delivery. In same-day delivery, e.g., the customer expects to receive the delivery on short notice, i.e., within a few hours. These new business models have in common that they come...
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