Assessing the Effects of Limited Curbside Pickup Capacity in Meal Delivery Operations for Increased Safety during a Pandemic

Abstract

Meal delivery has become increasingly popular in past years and of great importance in past months during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sustaining such services depends on maintaining provider profitability and reduced cost to consumers while continuing to support autonomy and independence for customers, restaurants, and delivery drivers (here crowdsourced drivers). This paper investigates the possible enactment of curbside regulations in the U.S. that limit the number of drivers simultaneously waiting at restaurants to pick up meals for delivery on both public safety and delivery efficiency. Curbside regulations would aim to increase safety by enabling social distancing between delivery personnel at pickup locations and have a secondary benefit of improving local traffic flows, which are sometimes impeded in busier, urban locations. Curbside space limits are studied in relation to their impacts on consumer-related performance measures: freshness of the food on delivery and click-to-door time. This investigation is enabled through a proposed hybrid discrete-event and time-advanced simulation platform that replicates meal delivery service calls and pickup and delivery operations across a region built on data from a leading meal delivery company. Embedded within the simulation is an integer program that optimally assigns orders to drivers in a dynamically changing environment. Order assignments are constrained by imposed curbside capacity limits at the restaurants, and potential efficiencies and curbside violation reductions from bundling orders are assessed. Results of analyses from numerical experiments provide insights to state and local communities in designing curbside restrictions that reduce curbside crowding yet enable delivery companies to retain their profitability.

Software Agent Simulation Design on the Efficiency of Food Delivery

“…Variables for the simulation used in this research are derived from the preliminary and existing studies [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. Three main stakeholders or actors are identified from the riders' point of view, which they interact with during their operations.…”

Meal delivery routing optimization with order allocation strategy based on transfer stations for instant logistics services

“…ALGORITHM 5 The generic structure of the insertion operator Initialize: partially destroyed solution s, a set of orders that have been moved out;…”

“…Online platforms provide customers with convenient ordering and delivery services [4]. Meanwhile, meal delivery services have caused a series of problems, such as traffic congestion, pollutant emissions, and crowding at restaurants [5]. By the end of 2019, the number of meal delivery consumers in China had reached 460 million, accounting for 50.7% of the Internet customers, and the transaction amount increased by 38.9% year-on-year to 392.7 billion yuan [6].…”

The effect of one-way aisles on retail layout

“… Brandtner et al (2021) analyze consumer satisfaction at the retail point-of-sale and find a general and significant decline due to COVID–19; most relevant to our study, they find that customers “prefer a shopping experience where the store layouts and markings ensure less human to human contacts.” Schleper et al (2021) study the impact of COVID–19 on one specific retailing company and, among other effects, note that modifications made to the store layout (e.g., the re-direction of customer flows one-way through stores or the protection of certain fresh goods through barriers) in relation to this peculiar crisis may have novel effects. Finally, many retailers have responded to the pandemic by delivering groceries and other retail products or incorporating curbside pick-up options ( Fotouhi et al 2021 ), and by providing other innovative service-delivery systems, such as “bring-service-near-your-home” mobile service operations ( Choi 2020 ).…”