Truck Departure Optimization from Distribution Center to Parcel Locker with Stochastic Demand Arrival.

Alongside the rising of e-commerce logistics, parcel locker starts to shine its commercial talent for its flexibility and safety. Parcel locker can help trucks avoid long waiting times during deliveries and allow customers to pick up packages flexibly. However, it also left challenges on when to send parcels from the distribution center to the lockers, so that the turnover time of parcels can be reduced and the customer satisfaction improved. This paper constructs an integer programming model for a truck departure problem where parcels are delivered from the distribution center to the parcel locker. Then, we reformulate the model and propose a Sample Average Approximation (SAA) method to solve the problem that involves the uncertainty of parcel arrival time. Numerical experiments reveal that our algorithm can save 6.785% of the parcel turnover time compared with the traditional method. The average turnover time per parcel will be saved by more than 0.25 hours.