Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to optimize delivery system services for BCCLS libraries

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was used to design a delivery routing system for Bergen County Cooperative Library System (BCCLS) to optimize their delivery services. BCCLS is a collection of 77 libraries that provides interlibrary loan services which requires delivery and pickup services to and from each library. The goal was to georeference the addresses of the libraries, warehouse, and office, partition each library into five routes, and produce a map displaying an example of one delivery route’s road network using ArcGIS’s ArcMap. Georeferencing the library locations was done using the Geocoding tool. Several combinations of libraries were produced based on the criteria of BCCLS such as staying within the limits of 5 total delivery routes, minimizing distance between each stop, and equally portioning the number of libraries and weekly volume of delivery items to each route. The road path of route 4 (with 18 stops and a total weekly volume of 9093 items) was modeled with the Network Analyst tool, which calculated the best order of library stops while preserving the first and last stop as the warehouse. The output route totalled a traveling distance of 48 miles, starting from the warehouse, visiting all 18 libraries, and ending back at the warehouse. This result produced the shortest distance possible within the delivery route, which may be indicative of it being the fastest route possible. However, without the implementation of historical or live traffic data, time may not be accurately considered since the shortest path may not be the fastest path. Further progress into this study may be directed to including historical traffic data to take into consideration the traffic patterns throughout the day for each day of the week.