Conference 2022
Top image

 
Home
Program LNMB conference
Invited Speakers
PhD student pitches
Registration
 
Return to LNMB Site
 

Liana van der Hagen (Erasmus University) - Machine Learning-Based Feasibility Checks for Dynamic Time Slot Management
Supervisor: Niels Agatz, Remy Spliet, and René de Koster
Abstract Recorded full presentation

Abstract Online grocers typically let customers choose a delivery time slot to receive their goods. To ensure a reliable service, the retailer may want to close time slots as capacity fills up. The number of customers that can be served per slot largely depends on the specific order sizes and delivery locations. Conceptually, checking whether it is possible to serve a certain customer in a certain time slot given a set of already accepted customers involves solving a vehicle routing problem with time windows. This is challenging in practice as there is little time available and not all relevant information is known in advance. We explore the use of machine learning to support time slot decisions in this context. Our results on realistic instances using a commercial route solver suggest that machine learning can be a promising way to assess the feasibility of customer insertions. On large-scale routing problems it performs better than insertion heuristics.