Kurierdienst im Hinblick auf ökologische Effizienz und soziale Verträglichkeit

Abstract

Courier and express services form a market sector of urban freight traffic which is growing rapidly. It is typical in cities such as Hamburg to have several thousand bicycle and car couriers in operation, covering more than 100 000 kilometers every day. We are presenting an individual-based and object-oriented model which simulates a courier service in detail. This includes accepting the orders, passing them on to the couriers by radio, as well as the movement of each courier in the road network. It was worked out in co-operation with a large courier service in Hamburg as an application of a modeling and simulation system for environmentally compatible traffic planning and logistics. The purpose of the simulation study is to assess the effects of possible changes to the courier service system and to evaluate them using various criteria. Potential changes range from varying the size of the fleet to introducing new logistical concepts. The criteria are quality of service (speed, punctuality, taking account of clients' special requests), ecological efficiency (reducing the distance travelled to a minimum, increasing the proportion of bicycle couriers) and social acceptability (earnings of the couriers, fairness of the distribution of orders among the courier fleet).