ABSTRACT In response to the increasing volume of parcels, last‐mile delivery innovations are exploring the integration of multiple delivery modes. The most prominent examples are delivery vans that, next to being the base for the delivery tasks of their human drivers, also function as mobile launching platforms for drones or autonomous delivery robots. This paper investigates a novel approach involving the cooperation of a mobile parcel locker, which repositions continuously to facilitate self‐pickup by urban customers, alongside the parallel home‐delivery tasks of its human driver. For a predetermined set of customers, divided into home‐delivery and self‐service categories, we aim to identify a synchronized route for a locker‐driver tandem that minimizes the total delivery duration. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the problem's computational complexity, we develop efficient solution methods for the deterministic version of the problem. Additionally, we address the scenario with stochastic response times of self‐service customers. From a managerial perspective, we examine the service‐cost trade‐off: accommodating convenient pickup times for self‐service customers can disrupt route efficiency, and vice versa. Our findings indicate that effective synchronization of both delivery modes can provide a suitable balance between service quality and operational efficiency.
Boysen et al. (Thu,) studied this question.