Joint matching and pricing for crowd-shipping with in-store customers

This study considers a delivery platform that offers shoppers compensation for taking online orders to nearby customers. A Markov decision model represents uncertain order arrivals, shopper availability and offer acceptance. Neural approximate dynamic programming assigns deliveries, while a deep double Q-network adapts prices. Experiments show that coordinating assignment and compensation improves delivery-cost efficiency compared with fixed-price and myopic alternatives; flexible delivery windows and multi-destination routes offer further gains.

Citation

Dehghan, Arash, et al. “Joint Matching and Pricing for Crowd-Shipping with In-Store Customers.” INFOR: Information Systems and Operational Research, 2026, doi:10.1080/03155986.2026.2659467.

Authors from IE Research Datalab