Barrett Thomas, University of Iowa

Abstract

Same-day delivery has become common in many cities. These services can involve the delivery of goods ordered online such as services offered by Amazon PrimeNow or InstaCart or the delivery meals such those offered by GrubHub. In this talk, we focus on the former and particularly on the case where customers order good online and these orders are fulfilled from a central depot. In this case, a customer seeks to place an order for online. The company must determine if the service can be provided same-day, and then if the customer chooses that service what vehicle and on what route the goods should be delivered. Decision making is complicated by the fact that orders arrive sequentially and randomly over time. This talk will discuss the use of reinforcement learning for decision making and will particularly look at issues of fairness and the impact of decision on the evolution of demand over time.

[Video]