Design and Analysis of the Task Distribution Scheme of Express Center at the End of Modern Logistics

• Main Authors: Chunxue Wu, Junjie Wu, Yan Wu, Qunhui Wu, Xiao Lin, Neal N. Xiong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-10-01
• Series: Electronics
• Subjects: express delivery center; task assignment; dispatch; time cost
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/8/10/1141

With the rise and improvement of artificial intelligence technology, the express delivery industry has become more intelligent. At the terminal of modern logistics, each dispatch center has hundreds of express mail deliveries to be dispatched every day, and the number of dispatchers is far less than the number of express mail deliveries. How to assign scientific tasks to each courier dispatch is the main target of this paper. The purpose is to make the number of tasks between the various couriers in the express center roughly the same in each cycle, so that there is a more balanced income between the couriers. In the simulation experiment, the delivery addresses are clustered according to the balanced k-means algorithm. Then, the ant colony algorithm is used to plan the delivery order of the express items in each class. Then, the time cost model is established according to the delivery distance of the express items in each class and the delivery mode of the express items to calculate the delivery time cost. Through a large amount of experimental data, the standard deviation of delivery time cost of each courier gradually decreases and tends to stabilize, which suggests that this method has a good effect on the dispatching task assignment of the express center. It can effectively make the delivery workload between the distributors roughly the same, and improve the delivery efficiency of the courier, save energy, and promote sustainable development.