Evaluation of reserved loading areas for last mile delivery

The increasing volume of parcels leads to challenges due to unauthorized parking especially in cities. This paper considers the concept of loading areas which are the only allowed parking spaces for delivery services. Loading areas are installed by cities and include one or several parking spaces. Via a smartphone app these parking spaces can be reserved and opened (bollards) by companies or drivers. We introduce a model to collaboratively assign parking times in loading areas. The model is investigated in a comprehensive computational study and compared with the state-of-the-art, where delivery services may stop in unauthorized positions, and loading areas without collaborative reservation with a first-come-first-serve scheme. Our results show that the concept can be a useful solution for the trade-off between safety (no unauthorized parking) and tour duration. Tour durations can be improved substantially by collaborative planning, an increased number of loading areas and parking spaces, and high delivery speeds between loading areas and customers. • Investigation of smart loading areas for last-mile delivery. • Presentation of a mixed-integer linear programming model for collaborative planning. • Makespan can be reduced by additional loading areas or parking spaces.