Estimation of postal service delivery time and energy cost with e-scooter by machine learning algorithms

Abstract

© 2022 by the authors.This research aims to estimate the delivery time and energy cost of e-scooter vehicles for distributing mail or packages and to show the usage efficiency of e-scooter sharing services in postal service delivery in Turkey. The machine learning (ML) methods used to implement the prediction of delivery time and energy cost as output variables include random forest (RF), gradient boosting (GB), k-nearest neighbour (kNN), and neural network (NN) algorithms. Fifteen input variables under demographic, environmental, geographical, time, and meta-features are utilised in the ML algorithms. The correlation coefficient (R2) values of RF, GB, NN, and kNN algorithms were computed for delivery time as 0.816, 0.845, 0.821, and 0.786, respectively. The GB algorithm, which has a high R2 and the slightest margin of error, exhibited the best prediction performance for delivery time and energy cost. Regarding delivery time, the GB algorithm’s MSE, RMSE, and MAE values were calculated as 149.32, 12.22, and 6.08, respectively. The R2 values of RF, GB, NN, and kNN algorithms were computed for energy cost as 0.917, 0.953, 0.400, and 0.365, respectively. The MSE, RMSE, and MAE values of the GB algorithm were calculated as 0.001, 0.019, and 0.009, respectively. The average energy cost to complete a package or mail delivery process with e-scooter vehicles is calculated as 0.125 TL, and the required time is approximately computed as 11.21 min. The scientific innovation of the study shows that e-scooter delivery vehicles are better for the environment, cost, and energy than traditional delivery vehicles. At the same time, using e-scooters as the preferred way to deliver packages or mail has shown how well the delivery service works. Because of this, the results of this study will help in the development of ways to make the use of e-scooters in delivery service even more efficient.