Application of CE principles in design of an integrated participative management system to support for urban freight distribution planning: MISPPUFD model

One of the major obstacles for cities to achieve sustainability is the problems related to urban freight transport. Freight transport operations in urban areas are usually carried out by private companies (freight operators and carriers), using public infrastructure, governed by regulations and implemented and monitored by public authorities. In most cases, because there is no prior consultation with the other stakeholders involved in freight transportation, the negative impacts generated from the urban freight distribution are compromised by the implementation of these actions. There is a lack in the literature a decision support system an appropriate that be able to potentialize the involvement between public and private sector of urban freight. This paper look for new ways of responding to these questions. In this context, the objective of this work is to present a methodology based on the application of Concurrent Engineering (CE) principles in design of an Integrated Participative Planning Management System to Support for Urban Freight Distribution (MISPPUFD) - be able to influence and promote behavioral / engagement change to a requirement for greater interaction between policy makers and stakeholders in support of the group decision-making process with regards to urban freight distribution issues. This suggests the importance of a system that promotes interaction and dialogue through public consultation to better understand the issues and objectives of different stakeholders in the cargo sector, including academic experts and citizens in that partnership. This approach should result in helping policy makers and stakeholders to deal with different complex objectives and decisions and guide the process of participationThis work has been supported by FCT Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia, Portugal, within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019

Role-playing games as a mean to validate agent-based models: an application to stakeholder-driven urban freight transport policy-making

Abstract Agent-based models (ABMs) are widely used to replicate transport environments accounting for interaction among stakeholders. Validation of ABMs implies assessing the extent to which the model, from assumptions to results, is capable of approximating reality. To this end, different methods have been proposed, but yet no widely accepted procedure has emerged. This paper addresses this problem and suggests using a procedure based on role-playing games (RPGs). A first application is described with the intent of providing a preliminary contribution to validate an ABM trying to mimic stakeholders' interaction in a multi-level decision-making process in the context of urban freight transport policy-making. The aim is twofold: (1) understand if the structure of the model and the opinion dynamics envisioned are consistent with a real negotiation process, (2) verify if the results derived from the ABM effort are in line with those derived from a real-life experiment. Results of the first preliminary experiment show that the model seems capable of reproducing real-world processes and confirm that well-thought-out RPGs can contribute to validating ABMs

Role-playing games as a mean to validate agent-based models : an application to stakeholder-driven urban freight transport policymaking

Agent-based models (ABMs) are widely used to replicate transport environments accounting for interaction among stakeholders. Validation of ABMs implies assessing the extent to which the model, from assumptions to results, is capable of approximating reality. To this end, different methods have been proposed, but yet no widely accepted procedure has emerged. This paper addresses this problem and suggests using a procedure based on role-playing games (RPGs). A first application is described with the intent of providing a preliminary contribution to validate an ABM trying to mimic stakeholders’ interaction in a multi-level decisionmaking process in the context of urban freight transport policy-making. The aim is twofold: (1) understand if the structure of the model and the opinion dynamics envisioned are consistent with a real negotiation process, (2) verify if the results derived from the ABM effort are in line with those derived from a real-life experiment. Results of the first preliminary experiment show that the model seems capable of reproducing real-world processes and confirm that well-thought-out RPGs can contribute to validating ABMs. Keywords: city logistics, stakeholder engagement, participatory simulation, model validation, discrete choice modelspublishedVersio

Smart urban freight planning process: integrating desk, living lab and modelling approaches in decision-making

Abstract Purpose This paper proposes an innovative approach to decision-making processes for urban freight planning that could easily be transferred across cities while capable of jointly taking into account: (1) all the conceivable and updated urban freight transport (UFT) measures that should apply to the specific city culture, structure and evolution, (2) all the relevant stakeholders and successfully involve them from the beginning, (3) behavioural, technical, operational, organisational and financial issues. Methods The methodology is organised and deployed in three phases, following three different approaches, i.e.: a "desk approach" for data acquisition and knowledge-based policy rankings; a "living lab approach" to foster stakeholders' engagement in co-creating policies; a "modelling approach" to evaluate policies and find/define an optimised mix of shared applicable/effective policies. Results The three-phase methodology supports public authorities in: (a) increasing knowledge and understanding of the most innovative context-specific UFT policies; (b) integrating UFT policies in strategic urban planning via collaborative participation/governance processes; (c) developing an ex-ante behaviourally consistent, financially robust and technically compatible assessment of shared UFT policy mixes while providing appropriate instruments to facilitate policy adoption and deployment. Conclusions The proposed methodology contributes to the identification and development of effective UFT solutions. Bringing together knowledge acquisition, policy co-creation, behaviour change analysis within a single methodological approach, aimed at identifying an optimised policy package, is both new and needed

Three-Nucleon Electroweak Capture Reactions

Recent advances in the study of the p-d radiative and mu-3he weak capture processes are presented and discussed. The three-nucleon bound and scattering states are obtained using the correlated-hyperspherical-harmonics method, with realistic Hamiltonians consisting of the Argonne v14 or Argonne v18 two-nucleon and Tucson-Melbourne or Urbana IX three-nucleon interactions. The electromagnetic and weak transition operators include one- and two-body contributions. The theoretical accuracy achieved in these calculations allows for interesting comparisons with experimental data.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, invited talk at the CFIF Fall Workshop: Nuclear Dynamics, from Quarks to Nuclei, Lisbon, 31st of October - 1st of November 200

Testing demand responsive shared transport services via agent-based simulations

Demand Responsive Shared Transport DRST services take advantage of Information and Communication Technologies ICT, to provide on demand transport services booking in real time a ride on a shared vehicle. In this paper, an agent-based model ABM is presented to test different the feasibility of different service configurations in a real context. First results show the impact of route choice strategy on the system performance

Digital twins : a critical discussion on their potential for supporting policy‐making and planning in urban logistics

Poor logistics efficiency, due to low load factors caused by high demand fragmentation, will have relevant negative consequences for cities in terms of pollution, congestion and overall city liveability. Policy-makers should equip themselves with appropriate tools to perform reliable, comprehensive and timely analyses of urban logistics scenarios, also considering upcoming (i) technological changes, (ii) business model evolutions and (iii) spatial-temporal changes these innovations will produce. This paper discusses the Digital Twin (DT) concept, illustrating the role it might play and clarifying how to properly conceive it with respect to urban freight transport policy-making and planning. The main message is that without a sound theory and knowledge with respect to the relationships linking contextual reality and choice/behaviour, it is not possible to make sense of what happens in the real world. Therefore, the joint use of behavioural and simulation models should characterise a DT within a Living Lab approach so to stimulate effective, well-informed and participated planning processes, but also to forecast both behaviour and reactions to structural changes and policy measures implementations. Keywords: digital twins, urban freight, living lab, behavioural models, policy, planningpublishedVersio

Application of EFT at Thermal Energies

We have been evaluated some observables of n-d systems by using pionless Effective Field Theory(\EFTNoPion) and insertion of the three-body force up to next-to-next to leading order(N$^2$LO). The evaluated data has been compared with experimental and the three-nucleon calculation of the total cross section with modern realistic two- and three-nucleon forces AV18/UrbIX potential models calculations.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure and 1 table. Talk given at 20th European Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics (EFB 20), Pisa, Italy, 10-14 Sep 200

E-groceries and urban freight: Investigating purchasing habits, peer influence and behaviour change via a discrete choice/agent-based modelling approach

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Towards a decision-support procedure to foster stakeholder involvement and acceptability of urban freight transport policies

Purpose: This paper addresses the complex problem of multi-stakeholder decisions in urban freight transport policy-making from a public authority perspective, by proposing a procedure based on a modelling approach to support stakeholder involvement in the decision-making process. The paper analyses the existing methods that can be used for participatory decision-support, with the intent of contextualizing and introducing the innovative modelling approach. Methods: The modelling approach consists of a well-thought integration of discrete choice models (DCM) with agent-based models (ABM) as an effective way to account for stakeholders’ opinions in the policy-making process, while mimicking their interaction to find a shared policy package. The integrated modelling approach is able to combine the advantages of the two methods while overcoming their respective weaknesses. Since it is well grounded on sound microeconomic theory, it provides a detailed (static) stakeholders’ behavioural knowledge, but it is also capable of reproducing agents’ (dynamic) interaction during the decision-making process. The integration allows performing an ex-ante behavioural analysis, with the aim of testing the potential acceptability of the solutions proposed. The methodology is applied in a real case study to prove its feasibility and usefulness for participatory decision-making. Results: The integrated modelling approach can be used for participatory decision-support and it can be casted in the overall UFT policy-making process. The results of the behavioural analysis, in terms of ranking of potentially accepted policies, linked with the technical evaluations from transport network modelling tools, provide a sound basis for active participation and deliberation with stakeholders and policy-makers. The aim is to guide an effective participation process aimed at consensus building among stakeholders, by proposing them a subset of policies that, as a result of a preliminary analysis, are likely to be accepted while performing well in terms of technical results. Conclusions: This approach, integrating DCM and ABM, represents a promising way to tackle the complexity of multi-stakeholder involvement in UFT policy-making and to support an efficient and effective decision-making process. It produces an added value for UFT policy-making and it can be framed in the overall context of transport planning. In fact, together with technical and economic analyses, the stakeholder behavioural analysis proposed contributes to the ex-ante policy assessment needed to support decision-makers in taking well-thought decisions. Keywords: stakeholder behavioural analysis, discrete choice models, agent-based models, city logistics, participatory policy-makingpublishedVersio