Routing and Scheduling Algorithm in Combined Ride-Share and Delivery Service

The continuation of traditional logistics and human transportation services has become extremely challenging due to severe manpower shortages and stricter safety regulations, causing a critical situation. Consequently, it is anticipated that meeting the increasing demand will soon become impossible. Furthermore, not only many bus routes but also even many bus companies have already closed. To overcome this problem, a service where individuals undertake last-mile delivery in logistics have been examined and partially implemented, while ride-sharing and on-demand bus services are being explored for human transportation. Although route and scheduling control on road networks are crucial for these mechanisms, efficient control methods have not been sufficiently studied, as practical application has been prioritized. This paper investigates a service combining ride-sharing and logistics. This approach aims to address the issues of regions lacking public transportation infrastructure and logistics simultaneously. We formulate an optimization problem for operation scheduling in a service that simultaneously transports and delivers people on demand, design an algorithm to solve it, and evaluate its performance through simulations in actual regions.