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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

The most complicated and expensive part of the supply chain is the last-mile delivery, where the costs can account for up to 28% of the total transportation cost and is projected to increase. The two main issues driving these costs will be the continual rise of e-commerce as well as rapid global urbanization, so there is a need for ways to optimize the delivery process to reduce costs. Urbanization leads to continued growth of traffic, which leads to transportation delays, higher fuel costs, and larger environmental impacts. These factors have led companies to consider deliveries by drone, but drones have limited battery capacities. Instead of looking at company delivery trucks as mobile charging stations from which to launch drones, a group of resarchers considered utilizing public transportation vehicles to serve that purpose [nature.com].

The idea of letting drones recharge or hitch rides on buses and trams to conserve energy was first introduced by Stanford researchers [arxiv.org]. The researchers in this work extended that idea to using multiple drones and and multiple warehouses operating around the actual transportation nodes of a city (Bremen, Germany) and found that this is an attractive and viable approach that can be implemented in the real world.

Journal Reference:

Moadab, A., Farajzadeh, F. & Fatahi Valilai, O. Drone routing problem model for last-mile delivery using the public transportation
capacity as moving charging stations. Sci Rep 12, 6361 (2022).

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-10408-4 [doi.org]

Original Submission