The Two-Echelon Location-Routing Model with Multi-Commodity, Automated Delivery Systems and Integrating People and Freight Transportation

City logistics face numerous challenges crucial for maintaining urban quality of life, with growing research interest in this area. This paper examines the multi-commodity two-echelon location-routing problem, integrating people, freight transportation, and automated delivery systems (MC-SID-2E-LRP). The study selects optimal station locations and routes vehicles across the first and second echelons. Urban freighter vehicles are used in the first echelon, while city freighter vehicles are used in the second. The study also addresses customer-specif (commodity) movements and the integrated transportation of goods with people between stations in the first echelon. Additionally, the use of drones as an alternative to city freighter vehicles for final customer delivery is explored. This paper develops the MC-SID-2E-LRP model to minimize total costs and achieve optimal outcomes for real-world city logistics issues. The effectiveness of this model is demonstrated through computational studies conducted on small, medium, and large sample sets, assessing both the computational effort and the quality of solutions.