ON SMART LOCKER PRICING: A QUEUING THEORETIC APPROACH

摘要

Smart lockers have been deployed across a lot of cities as an alternative last-mile delivery solution to home delivery. After the parcels are delivered to smart lockers, the customers are allowed to pick up their parcels at any time in convenience. Smart lockers help the couriers to avoid rescheduling for unsuccessful deliveries and increase delivery efficiency. Therefore, the couriers are willing to pay for the locker usage. Based on queuing theories, this paper develops models to analyze the service level of smart locker systems and further studies the optimal pricing decisions from the perspective of smart locker providers. Numerical studies are conducted to provide further insights on the quantity configuration of smart locker design and its impact on provider's profit.