Assigning delivery routes to drivers under variable customer demands

This study covers situations in which random day-to-day customer demands complicate decisions made by managers of vehicle routing/dispatch operations. The paper proposes and analyzes a rule to guide the decision of interest: daily assignment of delivery routes to drivers. The rule targets customer service goals by trying to maximize the likelihood that each customer will continue to be served by the driver who is most familiar with that customer. Statistical analysis of the rule yields several managerial implications about pursuing maximum customer-driver familiarity. Among these is the potentially problematic wide disparity in a customer’s level of familiarity with different drivers.