Collaborative Delivery Route Planning for Rural Public Buses and Express Delivery Vehicles Based on Passenger and Freight Integration

As a novel logistics transportation mode, the passenger and freight integration model has garnered significant attention in recent years. This study focuses on collaborative delivery route planning for rural public buses and express delivery vehicles, exploring its application within the context of passenger and freight integration. For the pickup and delivery routing problem with time windows under demand uncertainty, we first developed a traditional model aimed at minimizing total costs. Subsequently, considering the integration of passenger and freight co-transportation with collaborative delivery between buses and courier vehicles, we formulated a model for location and collaborative routing planning under the passenger-freight co-transportation mode. This model addresses the pickup and delivery problem with time windows while accounting for demand uncertainty. Meanwhile, for the first model, a hybrid heuristic algorithm based on the moth–flame optimization (MFO) and single-parent genetic algorithm (SGA) is designed and implemented. The validation of the effectiveness of this algorithm is completed using standard arithmetic examples. For the second model, the rural route optimization method and the improved tabu search algorithm are developed, considering the pickup and delivery sequence. Finally, through empirical analysis in three townships in Hanzhong City, the study verifies the feasibility of the proposed models and methods, along with the advantages of the passenger and freight integration model in rural areas.