Network reliability of a stochastic online-food delivery system with space and time constraints

This paper mainly discusses the network reliability of an online-food delivery system with stochastic capacity, named the stochastic online-food delivery system (SODS).The capacity that is the number of available food delivery persons in each region is stochastic because the food delivery workers can choose their shift. Transportation time and loading space constraints are considered in this paper. The transportation time consists of the waiting time at restaurants, and the food delivery worker's driving time to reach the customer's location cannot exceed the time constraint. The space weight denotes the proportion of the commodity's space in the delivery box. Each food delivery worker will deliver multiple commodities under the space constraint. This paper evaluates the network reliability of the SODS. Network reliability is defined as the probability of meeting the commodity requirements within space and time constraints. Network reliability can be used as a performance indicator to present the SODS system status. A case of a nonline-food delivery system in front of Taipei railway station in Taiwan is presented to emphasize the management implications of network reliability.