Demand and fleet management for on-demand delivery services

Distinguished Research Seminar Series

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Date

25 Mar 2026
Organiser

Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, PolyU
Time

17:00 - 18:30
Venue

Online via ZOOM

Speaker

Prof. Marlin Ulmer

Remarks

Meeting link will be sent to successful registrants. If you have enquiries regarding E-certificate after the seminar, please contact david.kuo@polyu.edu.hk.

Summary

On-demand delivery systems operate in a very uncertain and dynamic environment. Customers request service spontaneously at any time and place in the city and expect a high service availability as well as fast, cost-efficient, and high-quality service. Service providers control a fleet of delivery vehicles in real time in reaction to the new orders and in anticipation of future demand. Further, they can control demand in terms of service availability, display optimization, prices, and the offered service itself to stay flexible for future demand. In this talk, we discuss selected means of fleet and demand management for on-demand services and their impact on service providers, customers, and drivers. We will set a special focus on instant delivery, restaurant meal delivery, and crowdsourced delivery concepts.

Keynote Speaker

Prof. Marlin Ulmer

Professor
Faculty of Economics and Management, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Germany

Prof. Marlin Ulmer is a full professor for Management Science at the Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Germany. He studied mathematics at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and completed his PhD in Braunschweig at the Carl-Friedrich-Gauß-Faculty of the Technische Universität Braunschweig. His research comprises decision support for transportation and logistics with a particular focus on stochastic information and dynamic decision making. He develops and adapts methodology from stochastic programming and approximate dynamic programming. One of his main application areas is on-demand urban delivery such as restaurant meal delivery or instant delivery of goods. Marlin Ulmer publishes regularly in the leading journals of the field such as Transportation Science and the European Journal of Operational Research. He is associate editor for several journals, amongst others, Transportation Science. In 2026, he became president of the INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics Society.