Novel Spherical Fuzzy MARCOS Method for Assessment of Drone-Based City Logistics Concepts

Abstract

Technological innovations from the last few years, in the combination with city logistics (CL) initiatives, make the definition of novel, complex, sustainable CL solutions possible. Unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) as a technology attracted lots of attention in the literature. Various researches focused on different drone-based delivery approaches, but there are only a few articles dealing with drones as the elements of complex CL concepts. The goal of this paper is to evaluate different drone-based CL concepts. Based on the existing ideas of drone application in delivery, the main group of CL concepts and their variants are defined, which represents the main contribution of the article. The evaluation and ranking of concepts are performed from the aspect of all CL stakeholders and the defined set of criteria by applying measurement of alternatives and ranking according to compromise solution (MARCOS) multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) method in spherical fuzzy environment, which represents another contribution of the article. The results indicate that the potentially best CL concept, with the final score of 0.408, is the one that refers to the transformation of the logistics system into a two-echelon system with the implementation of micro-consolidation centers (MCCs), in which the delivery of goods to MCCs is realized with rail transportation mode and the last delivery phase with drones. It is followed by the concepts that imply MCCs, and rail transportation in the function of mobile depots for drone launching and MCCs and ground delivery vehicles (GDVs), with the final scores of 0.395 and 0.390, respectively.