An Evaluation of Factors Affecting Livability in a Freight-Centric Community in Memphis, Tennessee

Community livability is increasingly being examined and promoted as exemplary practice. The impact of freight on an urban community is significant, yet in the United States few efforts have been devoted to better understanding the concept. A pilot-scale project was conducted in Memphis, Tennessee in a region with heavy freight traffic. Following a broad literature review of globally applied strategies for enhancing livability and solving problems caused by freight, a survey was conducted of various residential stakeholders regarding their perceived definition of livability, barriers to livability, and impact of freight on the livability of their communities. Survey results were analyzed to identify priorities for a livable community and to explore the differences between freight-centric and non-freight-centric responses. Transportation related strategies that may provide a way to enhance livability were also evaluated based on their applicability in Memphis, Tennessee as well as their general applicability and effectiveness in the United States

The scope for pavement porters: addressing the challenges of last-mile parcel delivery in London

The UK parcel sector generated almost £9 billion in revenue in 2015, with growth expected to increase by 15.6% in 2019 and is characterized by many independent players competing in an ‘everyone-delivers-everywhere’ culture leading to much replication of vehicle activity. With road space in urban centers being increasingly reallocated to pavement widening, bus and cycle lanes, there is growing interest in alternative solutions to the last-mile delivery problem. We make three contributions in this paper: firstly, through empirical analysis using carrier operational datasets, we quantify the characteristics of last-mile parcel operations and demonstrate the reliance placed on walking which can make up over 60% of the round time; secondly we introduce the concept of ‘portering’ where vans rendezvous with porters who operate within specific ‘patches’ to service consignees on-foot, potentially saving 86% in driving distance on some rounds; finally, we highlight the wider practical issues and optimization challenges associated with operating driving and portering rounds in inner urban areas

Developing low-carbon freight microhubs in London - Principles, benefits and locational analysis

Microhubs are relatively small facilities located in or near city or town centres, where freight is received in bulk and then re-distributed to nearby residential and/ or commercial premises by low emission vehicles (e.g. electric vans, cargo cycles). Interest in urban microhubs has been growing, as evident by the increased number of these facilities in many cities and in the willingness of public authorities to encourage and sometimes co-fund them. The deployment of microhubs, and the associated shift towards employing low-emission vehicles is becoming urgent, given trends such as the increase in demand for home and business deliveries, shifts in political and public priorities towards sustainability and liveability (including carbon reduction, cleaner air and accident reductions), concerns about congestion, and increased competition for roadspace and kerbside space. Microhubs can not only reduce environmental problems associated with last-mile freight distribution in cities, but under the right conditions can also generate benefits for shippers, freight operators and customers, as well as wider economic and social benefits for the communities they serve. This report reviews international evidence on the realisation of these benefits, and then looks specifically at London. Simulation and evaluation studies have shown that, in general, microhubs located in denser urban areas reduce emissions while allowing for faster, more reliable, and more flexible deliveries, compared with conventional delivery systems. Previous studies have shown that the viability of microhubs, both from the operator’s and society’s perspective, is location-specific and depends, among other things, on the density of demand, the supply of labour, and on the characteristics of the road infrastructure in the surrounding areas. Drawing upon this prior knowledge, the report develops and demonstrates a method for identifying the most suitable potential locations for urban microhubs served by cargo bikes. This method was applied to Greater London, using a grid of 39,861 points at 200m intervals, covering the whole of the Greater London area. The suitability of each point was assessed based on (i) the demand for deliveries (from residents and businesses), (ii) road infrastructure and operational conditions for cycling in the surrounding area, and (iii) the availability of a suitable pool of labour. Once these filters had been applied, the remaining 3,109 potential sites was then characterised in terms of (iv) wider social and environmental benefits of shifting motorised deliveries to cargo cycles and (v) local on site-level constraints. The report concludes by mapping the locations of four potential microhub sites owned by British Land, in Central and Inner London, onto the remaining grid points

Quantitative assessment of sustainable city logistics

[EN] The aim of this paper is to seek an answer to an specific question: how to make city logistics sustainable? This question in principle has no specific answer. By contrast, it could be answered in many and varied ways. Behind the search for some of these answers lies the development of a roadmap which this work aims to present. The research lines, the theoretical framework and methodology of the roadmap will be explained. Although the current status of the roadmap, its duration and timing still need to be completed, the main facts, as well as the results obtained to date and the expected results are here presented.Grosso-Delavega, R.; Muñuzuri, J. (2015). Quantitative assessment of sustainable city logistics. International Journal of Production Management and Engineering. 3(2):97-101. doi:10.4995/ijpme.2015.3320.SWORD971013

Business Strategies to Improve On-Time Deliveries and Profits in Southcentral Alaska

Traffic congestion can cause late deliveries, decreased profits from vehicle fuel idling in traffic, and delayed distribution in tight delivery windows. The focus of this study was on developing strategies that business leaders could use to increase on-time deliveries. The conceptual frameworks for this case study were systems theory, traffic equilibrium theory, bathtub theory, and kinematic wave theory. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with 6 delivery service leaders from 3 delivery businesses in Southcentral Alaska. In addition, secondary data were collected from government information. Interview responses were coded to identify trends including delivery time, business activity, and amount of roadway congestion. Two major themes emerged from the interviews: time of day affecting when traffic congestion occurred, and limited alternate transportation routes causing congestion in Southcentral Alaska. The findings indicated that the best strategy to help reduce traffic congestion involved instituting toll optimization and high occupant vehicles lanes. The implications for effecting social change include how business leaders can help reduce traffic congestion using toll optimization, and how high occupant vehicle lanes could encourage Southcentral Alaskans to carpool

Urban freight transport from a local authority perspective – a literature review

On the path towards sustainability for the urban area, local authorities make decisions that affect freight transport. However, in many ways, urban freight transport is a neglected issue. The purpose of this paper is to map out the current status of urban freight transport research from a local authority perspective. A literature review is performed, looking through research in urban freight transport during the last 15 years. The review presents a large amount of references and it is clear that the area of urban freight transport has gained a larger interest during the later part of the time period studied. Research mainly focuses on freight measures (pilot actions) performed in an urban context, but the local authority perspective is lacking in many aspect s. The review shows some areas that local authorities need to consider when working with freight transport in the urban area, according to the literature: measures; monitoring and evaluation; performance indicators; transfer of knowledge between cities/cou ntries; and, stakeholder involvement

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

Cargo Logistics Airlift Systems Study (CLASS). Volume 3: Cross impact between the 1990 market and the air physical distribution systems, book 1

The interrelations between the infrastructure and the forecast future market are discussed. Also, using forecasts of market growth for a base, future aircraft and air service concepts were evaluated

Optimización sostenible y gestión eficiente de flotas urbanas

En esta tesis, dentro del marco de la logística urbana y la sostenibilidad, se presentan y se resuelven dos nuevas variantes de la familia de los Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) además de una novedosa política de recogida de residuos sólidos basados en información en tiempo real del nivel de llenado de los contenedores. Los nuevos VRP, de los que se incluyen sus respectivos modelos matemáticos, son el Vehicle Routing Problem with Access Time Window (VRPATW) y el Rich Vehicle Routing Problem with zone-dependent transportation cost (RVRPZD). Además de estos VRP inéditos se presenta también una variante de VRP para resolver el problema de recogida de residuos sólidos urbanos. Para solucionar estos problemas, todos ellos ubicados en la ciudad de Sevilla, se diseñan, implementan y calibran diferentes heurísticas y metaheurísticas tales como Algoritmos genéticos, búsquedas Tabú y algoritmos greedy. Estas herramientas de resolución se usan para resolver cientos de experimentos diseñados sobre un modelo de más de 1200 nodos de la ciudad de estudio. Y con los resultados obtenidos se sacan conclusiones relevantes sobre la mejora de la sostenibilidad de la logística urbana, el ahorro y la optimización de las flotas urbanas y la inclusión del concepto de sostenibilidad en la empresa privada, entre otras cosas.This thesis, after introducing the framework of urban logistics and sustainability, presentes two new variants of the family of the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP), along with a new policy for solid waste collection based on real-time information concerning the fill level of the containers. The document defines and formulates the mathematical models for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Access Time Window (VRPATW) and the Rich Vehicle Routing Problem with zone-dependent transportation cost (RVRPZD), and also includes the description of the recyclable waste collection problem with real-time data. To solve these problems for the case study of the city of Seville, the thesis shows the design, implementation and calibration of different heuristics and metaheuristics based on genetic algorithms, tabu search and greedy algorithms. These resolution tools are used to solve hundreds of experiments designed on a model withmore than 1200 nodes of the city of study. With the results the author draws relevant conclusions on how to improve the sustainability of urban logistics, the optimization of urban fleets, and the inclusion of the concept of sustainability in a private transportation company