Innovative Research on Transportation using Trucks and Drones

Abstract

This paper investigates the development and implementation of a hybrid transportation system that integrates the advantages of trucks and drones to optimise delivery processes. Considering the continuous growth in demand for rapid and efficient delivery services, our approach presents an innovative model that combines the reliability of road transport with the agility and speed of aerial delivery. Starting from a detailed analysis of logistics networks in Bacău County, Romania, our study develops and applies a routing algorithm using Google's OR-Tools. For truck transportation, real distances between towns were utilised, allowing the calculation of routes for both transportation modes, taking into account their specific characteristics. Computational experiments demonstrate that the proposed method is both fast and reliable.