The Influence of Institutional Policies and Information Technology Adoption towards Sustainable Logistics Transportation

Logistics is the movement engine for cargos and merchandises both for domestics and international. People complete their business process through logistics transportation, especially to move cargos and merchandises reaching their end users around the world, hence transportation also can be considered as the backbone to business supply chain. Unfortunately, their operations produced negative impacts to our environment and society. Thus, business activities nowadays goes beyond sustaining economic sustainability solely. They are concern dearly on the environmental quality and human well-being as well. The objective of this paper is to review the influence of institutional policies and information technology (IT) adoption towards sustainable logistics transportations in the economic, environmental and social performance. Through understanding of Institutional Theory and Resource-Based View (RBV) Theory, institutional policies and IT adoption can be considered as the enabler for logistics performance and their sustainability. This paper expects to provide new insights to the logistics practitioners and policy makers in sustaining logistics sector in parallel with todays world demand, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Education and Training Needs in the Field of Logistic Structures and Services in the Lower Danube Region

The approach of the subject concerning the training of specialists in the domain of logistic structures and services in the region of the inferior Danube is enlisted within a larger context, the Strategy of the Danube, but also in a more restrained one, the Program of Cross-Border Cooperation Romania – Bulgaria, 2007-2013. The Strategy of the Danube represents a project initiated in the year 2008 by Germany, Austria and Romania to which subsequently there adhered the other states on the Danube and which became a program of the European Commission. It shall have allotted a budget of 50 milliards euro until the year 2013. It shall be preponderantly addressed to the population in the Danube Basin, which is estimated at 115 millions, following to be developed through cross-border projects. In December 2010 there is foreseen the approval of the Action Plan for the program the Strategy of the Danube by the European Commission. The integration process needs premises and conditions for further development. One of them is the connectivity and it supporting system – the logistics. The problem of the connectivity is one of the pillars of the Danube strategy, which could play an important role in the Lower Danube Macro region’s development. Those problems need different approaches, specialized research and training. The situation of the two countries in the domain of fluvial logistics may be characterized as unsatisfactory in relation to their potential. At the present moment there is a single bridge which connects the two countries (Giurgiu – Ruse) and several travels with the passage boat. The harbour infrastructures are old and inefficient. There are no modern multi-modal platforms or a coherent vision in their design. The transportation on the Danube is insufficiently exploited. As well, the river is not capitalized in other domains, too: agriculture, pisciculture, energy, ecology, tourism, arrangement of the territory, etc.Within a more restrained context, but correlated with the Strategy of the Danube, Romania and Bulgaria cooperate within the Cross-Border Program 2007-2013. Within it, the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest and thee Economic Academy Dimitar Apostolov Tsenov in Svishtov proposed themselves to collaborate in the domain “Cooperation concerning the development of human resources – the joint development of abilities and knowledge”.fluvial logistics, multi-modal platform, education, transportation, cross-border, Lower Danube Macro region, territorial connectivity

Collaborative delivery strategies for goods delivery

Transportation sector has the highest growth rate of greenhouse gas emissions compared to other sectors. The fact that the current practice of freight transportation strategies is not sustainable in the long run, motivates the urgent need of sustainable transportation strategies with less negative effects on the environment and the society. As one of the possible sustainable solutions, collaborative planning of freight delivery has attracted the interest of professional and scientific communities. This work illustrates some strategies of the collaborative freight transportation.&nbsp

The effectiveness of Vendor Managed Inventory in the last-mile delivery: an industrial application

n/

Simulation and optimization of a multi-agent system on physical internet enabled interconnected urban logistics.

An urban logistics system is composed of multiple agents, e.g., shippers, carriers, and distribution centers, etc., and multi-modal networks. The structure of Physical Internet (PI) transportation network is different from current logistics practices, and simulation can effectively model a series of PI-approach scenarios. In addition to the baseline model, three more scenarios are enacted based on different characteristics: shared trucks, shared hubs, and shared flows with other less-than-truckload shipments passing through the urban area. Five performance measures, i.e., truck distance per container, mean truck time per container, lead time, CO2 emissions, and transport mean fill rate, are included in the proposed procedures using real data in an urban logistics case. The results show that PI enables a significant improvement of urban transportation efficiency and sustainability. Specifically, truck time per container reduces 26 percent from that of the Private Direct scenario. A 42 percent reduction of CO2 emissions is made from the current logistics practice. The fill rate of truckload is increased by almost 33 percent, whereas the relevant longer distance per container and the lead time has been increased by an acceptable range. Next, the dissertation applies an auction mechanism in the PI network. Within the auction-based transportation planning approach, a model is developed to match the requests and the transport services in transport marketplaces and maximize the carriers’ revenue. In such transportation planning under the protocol of PI, it is a critical system design problem for decision makers to understand how various parameters through interactions affect this multi-agent system. This study provides a comprehensive three-layer structure model, i.e. agent-based simulation, auction mechanism, and optimization via simulation. In term of simulation, a multi-agent model simulates a complex PI transportation network in the context of sharing economy. Then, an auction mechanism structure is developed to demonstrate a transport selection scheme. With regard of an optimization via simulation approach and sensitivity analysis, it has been provided with insights on effects of combination of decision variables (i.e. truck number and truck capacity) and parameters settings, where results can be drawn by using a case study in an urban freight transportation network. In the end, conclusions and discussions of the studies have been summarized. Additionally, some relevant areas are required for further elaborate research, e.g., operational research on airport gate assignment problems and the simulation modelling of air cargo transportation networks. Due to the complexity of integration with models, I relegate those for future independent research

Analysis and trends of city logistics projects in Europe

Last mile urban freight distribution systems generate negative externalities such as pollution, traffic congestion and other nuisances. To minimize such negative impacts, City Logistics (CL) projects are being implemented in many cities around Europe. CL aims at optimizing the logistics and transport activities by private companies in urban areas while considering traffic congestion and energy consumption. However, most CL initiatives do not consider all these aspects together, but they address them separately. In this context, there is a lack of studies on the state of the art and international diffusion of CL systems. In order to bridge the research gap, this paper proposes an exploratory study of a sample made of 70 European cities that have been piloting CL projects and a set of City Logistics Indices (CLI) is defined and used as indicators of the breath and number of CL measures implemented in a city. In particular, three different domains of application have been defined, namely Infrastructure, Regulation and Technology, together with and Aggregated City Logistics Index (ACLI) encompassing all of them. Results highlight that Southern European cities show higher CLIs. This is due to the fact that these cities have been undertaking fewer measures to reduce traffic congestion and pollution in the past compared to other regions and are now trying to filling the gap. This work illustrates how the CL issue has been applied in different European geographical areas so that it lays foundations for exploring the socio-cultural implications of various CL implementations

National Transport System Plan : Impact Assessment Programme

The National Transport System Plan guides the maintenance of the Finnish transport system and its development into the distant future. The plan will include an assessment of the current state and future operating environment of the Finnish transport system, the objectives for the transport system and the measures for meeting the objectives. National transport system planning will become a continuous process, which makes the development of the Finnish transport system more predictable and effective. When implemented, the transport system measures will have an impact on features such as the climate, the environment, society, the movement of people and transportation in the business sector. The impact assessment will increase understanding of the effects of developing the transport system, thus supporting both planning and decision-making. The assessment will render the planning solutions and decisions more transparent. The preparation of the National Transport System Plan assesses how the objectives set for the transport system are met. An environmental assessment will be made of the Transport System Plan according to the Act on the Assessment of the Effects of Certain Plans and Programmes on the Environment (200/2005). The impact assessment programme describes the starting points and the objectives of the National Transport System Plan and the assessment of its impacts, the progress of the preparations, the impacts assessed and the interaction related to the preparations. The assessment programme is available for viewing in the autumn of 2019, and citizens, the authorities and stakeholders may express their views to support the preparations for planning and assessment

Three essays on urban freight transport: models and tools for effective city logistics projects

The main purpose of these three years of research, summarized in this thesis, was to investigate the obstacles to the development of the city logistics initiatives by seeking solutions to overcome them through model and framework coming from management and transportation engineering. In particular, following a first analysis of a collection of European projects and a systematic analysis of scientific literature, three main gaps in city logistics have been identified: the lack of the stakeholders’ involvement, the need for data sharing platforms to overcome the current lack of data and the need to define city logistics solutions within the urban ecosystem, making consistent design choices coherently with what is already existing in terms of infrastructures, rules and stakeholders in the context. From these three gaps, three main research questions have arisen: (RQ1) Is it possible to support stakeholders in analysing CL solutions fitting their necessities applying some already existing and consolidate decision-making methods? (RQ2) Is it possible to define a database platform in which it is possible to collect, consult and update as many existing data as possible regarding urban freight transport? (RQ3) How is it possible to optimize city logistics infrastructures in a harmonious and coherent way with respect to the entire city logistics ecosystem? To answers to the research questions, a collection of articles is illustrated in this thesis work. From time to time different methodologies are used and illustrated, derived from the field of management and transport engineering, these different methodologies, such as the Systematic Literature Review, the House of Quality, a framework for building a data sharing platform, the city logistics Ecosystem and a decision-making support model (based on both a covering model and a Monte Carlo simulation) are described in detail in the various chapters of the thesis. In this dissertation work for the first time, the main obstacles to the development of city logistics initiatives, that are the lack of involvement of stakeholders, the lack of data, and the lack of an ecosystem vision of urban transport, have been identified and addressed at the same time. Even if literature sometimes offers some possible solutions to these gaps, few are simple to understand for those who work in the urban freight transport industry, easy to apply and replicable. Both in identifying the gap and in seeking solutions, the solutions showed in this thesis sought to address to those who work in the industry, mainly carriers, retailers, shop owners and public administration representatives, trying to combine scientific research with the search for solutions that can be implemented in practice as requested by such a practical research topic. For this reason, each proposed solution and methodology in this thesis has been implemented and experimented using as a case study the city of Bergamo (and testing its replicability in other European cities such as Saint-Etienne, Luxemburg and Amsterdam). In particular, the initial experience in the “Bergamo Logistica” project, part of the Bergamo 2.035 smart city research program, gave me the opportunity to understand the main critical issues found by the main actors who work in this field (i.e., carriers, couriers, retailers and institutions), to confirm some evidences that I found in the theory (i.e., main research gaps which originates the research questions) and to search for solutions that could both solve research gaps and optimize the daily logistics activities of the operators.The main purpose of these three years of research, summarized in this thesis, was to investigate the obstacles to the development of the city logistics initiatives by seeking solutions to overcome them through model and framework coming from management and transportation engineering. In particular, following a first analysis of a collection of European projects and a systematic analysis of scientific literature, three main gaps in city logistics have been identified: the lack of the stakeholders’ involvement, the need for data sharing platforms to overcome the current lack of data and the need to define city logistics solutions within the urban ecosystem, making consistent design choices coherently with what is already existing in terms of infrastructures, rules and stakeholders in the context. From these three gaps, three main research questions have arisen: (RQ1) Is it possible to support stakeholders in analysing CL solutions fitting their necessities applying some already existing and consolidate decision-making methods? (RQ2) Is it possible to define a database platform in which it is possible to collect, consult and update as many existing data as possible regarding urban freight transport? (RQ3) How is it possible to optimize city logistics infrastructures in a harmonious and coherent way with respect to the entire city logistics ecosystem? To answers to the research questions, a collection of articles is illustrated in this thesis work. From time to time different methodologies are used and illustrated, derived from the field of management and transport engineering, these different methodologies, such as the Systematic Literature Review, the House of Quality, a framework for building a data sharing platform, the city logistics Ecosystem and a decision-making support model (based on both a covering model and a Monte Carlo simulation) are described in detail in the various chapters of the thesis. In this dissertation work for the first time, the main obstacles to the development of city logistics initiatives, that are the lack of involvement of stakeholders, the lack of data, and the lack of an ecosystem vision of urban transport, have been identified and addressed at the same time. Even if literature sometimes offers some possible solutions to these gaps, few are simple to understand for those who work in the urban freight transport industry, easy to apply and replicable. Both in identifying the gap and in seeking solutions, the solutions showed in this thesis sought to address to those who work in the industry, mainly carriers, retailers, shop owners and public administration representatives, trying to combine scientific research with the search for solutions that can be implemented in practice as requested by such a practical research topic. For this reason, each proposed solution and methodology in this thesis has been implemented and experimented using as a case study the city of Bergamo (and testing its replicability in other European cities such as Saint-Etienne, Luxemburg and Amsterdam). In particular, the initial experience in the “Bergamo Logistica” project, part of the Bergamo 2.035 smart city research program, gave me the opportunity to understand the main critical issues found by the main actors who work in this field (i.e., carriers, couriers, retailers and institutions), to confirm some evidences that I found in the theory (i.e., main research gaps which originates the research questions) and to search for solutions that could both solve research gaps and optimize the daily logistics activities of the operators