{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,16]],"date-time":"2026-05-16T11:43:19Z","timestamp":1778931799332,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":55,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"10","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,28]],"date-time":"2025-09-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1759017600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100012166","name":"National Key R&D Program of China","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["2020YFB1712802"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2020YFB1712802"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100012166","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"name":"Research Program of Social Science of Qinhuangdao","award":["2024LX026"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2024LX026"]}]},{"name":"Science and Technology Research and Development Plan Project of Qinhuangdao","award":["202401A143"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["202401A143"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.mdpi.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Symmetry"],"abstract":"<jats:p>In fresh produce cold chain last-mile delivery, the highly dispersed customer base leads to exorbitant delivery costs, posing the greatest challenge for cold chain enterprises. Achieving a symmetrical balance between cost-efficiency, environmental sustainability, and service quality is a fundamental pursuit in logistics system optimization. This paper proposes integrating the crowd-shipping logistics model\u2014characterized by internet platform sharing and flexibility\u2014into the delivery service. It incorporates and extends features such as cold chain delivery, mixed fleets using gasoline and diesel vehicles (GDVs), electric vehicles (EVs), partial charging strategies for EVs, and time-of-use electricity pricing into the crowd-shipping model. A joint delivery mode combining traditional professional delivery (using GDVs and EVs) with crowd-shipping is proposed, creating a symmetrical collaboration between centralized fleet management and distributed social resources. The challenges associated with utilizing occasional drivers (ODs) are analyzed, along with the corresponding compensation decisions and allocation-related constraints. A route optimization model is constructed with the objective of minimizing total cost. To solve this model, an Improved Whale Optimization Algorithm (IWOA) is proposed. To further enhance the algorithm\u2019s performance, an adaptive variable neighborhood search is embedded within the proposed algorithm, and four local search operators are applied. Using a case study of 100 customer nodes, the joint delivery mode with OD participation reduces total delivery costs by an average of 24.94% compared to the traditional professional vehicle delivery mode, demonstrating a more symmetrical allocation of logistical resources. The experiments fully demonstrate the effectiveness of the joint delivery model and the proposed algorithm.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/sym17101609","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,29]],"date-time":"2025-09-29T10:49:34Z","timestamp":1759142974000},"page":"1609","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Crowd-Shipping: Optimized Mixed Fleet Routing for Cold Chain Distribution"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"17","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8923-0272","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Fuqiang","family":"Lu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics and Management, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yue","family":"Xi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics and Management, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Zhiyuan","family":"Gao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics and Management, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4543-8842","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hualing","family":"Bi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics and Management, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-7207-3166","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Shamim","family":"Mahreen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics and Management, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,28]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"671","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ejor.2011.11.010","article-title":"Operations Research for green logistics\u2013An overview of aspects, issues, contributions and challenges","volume":"219","author":"Dekker","year":"2012","journal-title":"Eur. 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