The efficacy of exclusive territory assignments to delivery vehicle drivers

A supporting logic for having a vehicle driver exclusively assigned to serve the same territory on every delivery trip is the deepening of the driver’s knowledge of the territory and the customers therein. This contributes to the driver’s proficiency in serving that territory. However, in situations of randomness in day-to-day customer demands, the choice of exclusive territory assignments entails the sacrifice of sub-optimal route configuration. This study quantifies the extent of that sacrifice in order to depict the cost implications of exclusive territory assignments vis-à-vis tactics that keep pace with day-to-day demand fluctuations by allowing for flexibility in the assignments. The study’s analysis of exclusive territory assignments covers those that involve territory sharing among a team of drivers.