Smart City Logistics Research Articles

Logistics distribution model and storage planning design based on multi-source information positioning in smart city development

The research mainly focuses on the inefficient planning of autonomous distribution and storage modes of distribution vehicles in smart city logistics and distribution, which in turn leads to poor customer experience, rising distribution costs, and wasted distribution resources. From the perspective of information processing in the logistics distribution process, the study takes multi-angle and multi-source information collection and fusion processing strategy as the main basis to help smart delivery robots realize map construction and autonomous positioning in the distribution process, and then facilitate real-time logistics distribution and storage mode planning by robots in combination with their own states. The research results show that the algorithm accuracy, standard error, and average running time of the extended Kalman filter localization model designed in the study are 0.96, 1.52, and 105s, respectively, with the algorithm accuracy being the highest and the other two values being the lowest in its class. Meanwhile, in the simulation logistics planning, the research-designed logistics planning model has the strongest information capturing ability, and the planning of distribution routes and storage modes is more reasonable, which can provide more efficient autonomous planning solutions.

Sustainable logistics and passenger transport in smart cities

The rapid growth of urban populations, coupled with the imperatives of decarbonization and the relentless march of urbanization, has thrust modern cities into a crucible of multifaceted challenges. In response, the Smart City concept has emerged as a shared paradigm for addressing these urban complexities. This transformative approach touches upon various facets of urban life, encompassing areas such as the economy, education, and governance. Among these, logistics stands out as a pivotal component of the Smart City framework, necessitating innovative and sustainable solutions. This article delves into the intricate nexus between sustainable logistics systems and the evolution of the Smart City concept. Drawing from both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, including multivariate analysis, the study synthesizes data from primary sources collected during a series of European projects conducted from 2020 to 2023, in addition to secondary data sources. A central inquiry revolves around the symbiotic relationship between e-commerce dynamics and the sustainability of smart city logistics solutions. The findings of this investigation illuminate a compelling correlation between the profitability of logistics enterprises and the key indicators of logistics development underpinning smart cities. By unveiling these interdependencies, this research contributes to our understanding of how sustainable logistics and passenger transport systems are pivotal to the ongoing development of smart cities, offering valuable insights for urban planners, policymakers, and industry stakeholders alike.

An agent-based secure privacy-preserving decentralized protocol for sharing and managing digital health passport information during crises.

The aim of this article is to identify a range of changes and challenges that present-day technologies often present to contemporary societies, particularly in the context of smart city logistics, especially during crises. For example, the long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as life losses, economic damages, and privacy and security violations, demonstrate the extent to which the existing designs and deployments of technological means are inadequate. The article proposes a privacy-preserving, decentralized, secure protocol to safeguard individual boundaries and supply governments and public health organizations with cost-effective information, particularly regarding vaccination. The contribution of this article is threefold: (i) conducting a systematic review of most of the privacy-preserving apps and their protocols created during pandemics, and we found that most apps pose security and privacy violations. (ii) Proposing an agent-based, decentralized private set intersection (PSI) protocol for securely sharing individual digital personal and health passport information. The proposed scheme is called secure mobile digital passport agent (SMDPA). (iii) Providing a simulation measurement of the proposed protocol to assess performance. The performance result proves that SMDPA is a practical solution and better than the proposed active data bundles using secure multi-party computation (ADB-SMC), as the average CPU load for SMDPA is approximately 775 milliseconds (ms) compared to about 900 ms for ADB-SMC.

Smart City Logistics on the Basis of Digital Tools for ESG Goals Achievement

The development of modern logistics systems requires state-of-the-art solutions for simultaneously achieving sustainable development goals and ambitious business targets. On this issue, the challenge of implementing digital technologies in social life, in particular in smart cities, deserves special attention. The diversified application of Industry 4.0 doctrine and digital shadow penetration to all fields of socioeconomic systems highlights the gaps in the design, control, and efficiency assessment of digital tools in the logistics of smart cities. Another challenge concerns the need to consider environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles amid the deployment of harmonic digital tools within urban territories. All these issues require a complex methodological approach toward understanding the role of IT in the modern economy through an ESG prism. The article contains a contemporary literature review on the related topic and the conceptual framework of city logistics digitalization under ESG perspectives and constraints. The mathematical model proposed by the researchers enables a multidimensional design of digital solution applications within smart city logistics performance. The designed discrete stochastic model is eligible for scaling toward and the further development of variables other than the key ones mentioned above. The mathematical formalization of the proposed model considers the distribution of the limited budgeting of administrative branches within city logistics, highlighting the research relevance in connection with the ESG principles.

Evaluation of Smart City Logistics Solutions

The negative effects of goods flows realisation are most visible in urban areas as the places of the greatest concentration of economic and social activities. The main goals of this article were to identify the applicable Industry 4.0 technologies for performing various city logistics (CL) operations, establish smart sustainable CL solutions (SSCL) and rank them in order to identify those which will serve as the base points for future plans and strategies for the development of smart cities. This kind of problem requires involvement of multiple stakeholders with their opposing goals and interests, and thus multiple criteria. For solving it, this article proposed a novel hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model, based on BWM (Best-Worst Method) and CODAS (COmbinative Distance-based ASsessment) methods in grey environment. The results of the model application imply that the potentially best SSCL solution is based on the combination of the concepts of micro-consolidation centres and autonomous vehicles with the support of artificial intelligence and Internet of Things technologies. The main contributions of the article are the definition of original SSCLs, the creation of a framework and definition of criteria for their evaluation and the development of a novel hybrid MCDM model.

Smart and sustainable city logistics: Design, consolidation, and regulation

Growing e-commerce delivery increases traffic congestion and demands for smart last-mile city distribution systems. In this context, municipalities and logistics service providers aim towards sustainable and profitable city logistics, which are often conflicting goals. Whether to use single-echelon or two-echelon systems with micro-depots and city freighters as well as quantifying the benefits of shipment consolidation between independent providers under different system designs are unanswered questions in academia and practice.We provide a general methodological framework based on continuous approximation theory to study the design of city logistics networks with multiple logistics service providers that choose transportation strategies, each defined by a network structure and specific transportation modes. We provide analytical results on the comparison of different transportation strategies. By providing thresholds on the benefit of consolidated systems, we analytically quantify shipment consolidation effects in city centers. We then embed this continuous approximation into a mixed-integer non-linear program and study parameter sensitivities for a real-world case study.Our results show that higher customer density and longer distances between depots and distribution areas promote 2-tier transportation strategies. Consolidation between logistics service providers allows for emission reductions independent of the transportation strategy and correlate with cost reductions up to 50% on the lower echelon. Outsourcing promotes 2-tier last-mile deliveries with city freighters and in a city with heterogeneous districts, it is beneficial to use a hybrid network that includes both single- and two-echelon strategies using multiple transportation modes for different demand classes.

Business Model Analysis of Smart City Logistics Solutions Using the Business Model Canvas: The Case of an On-Demand Warehousing E-Marketplace

The rapid rise of e-commerce and advances in the technological sector have enabled the emergence of modern business models on e-marketplaces. Digital and on-demand e-marketplaces have become increasingly popular, responding to the trend of the sharing economy in various business sectors, but there is little guidance on how to develop the respective business models in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of such companies. The present paper is based upon the development and operation of an innovative on-demand warehousing e-marketplace in Greece as a one stop-shop for on-demand warehousing services. The purpose of this paper is to identify the necessary components for developing a successful innovative business model for a viable and effective on-demand warehousing platform. The identification of the value proposition of the proposed e-marketplace, the necessary business infrastructure and the customer interface are described, analyzed and adapted to the Greek Market. Furthermore, this paper also describes the cost structure and the revenue streams of the proposed on-demand warehousing e-marketplace.

Developing a Smart City Logistics Assessment Framework (SCLAF): A Conceptual Tool for Identifying the Level of Smartness of a City Logistics System

One of the main building blocks for sustainable cities is the development and efficient operation of a viable and sustainable city logistics system. City logistics exhibit several practical complications due to the conflicting interests of multiple actors involved, as well as the vague role or reluctant involvement of the public sector. Despite the plethora of innovative city logistics initiatives developed in European cities and European policy priorities towards the promotion of smart cities, little is known about the level of smartness of city logistics systems in Europe. In response to that, this paper proposes a conceptual multi-criteria and multi-assessment framework as a guidance tool for city planners, aiming to support the in-depth understanding of the main components of a smart city logistics ecosystem and facilitate the self-assessment of a city’s level of smartness. The proposed framework represents a four-level hierarchical assessment pyramid involving four main impact areas: (i) smart governance, (ii) smart economy, (iii) smart actors, and (iv) smart environment. A more in-depth analysis of each impact area is separately conducted by deconstructing the impact areas in specific criteria, sub-criteria, and KPIs. This paper presents in detail the methodology followed and the main components of this tool.

The smart city transport and logistics system: Theory, methodology and practice

The smart city transport and logistics system: Theory, methodology and practice

Scaling Up Smart City Logistics Projects: The Case of the Smooth Project

A large number of smart city logistics projects fail to scale up, remaining a local experimental exercise. This lack of scalability is, in fact, commonly recognized as a major problem. This study aims to determine the key success factors related to the scalability of smart city logistics projects. The process of scaling up, which is articulated as expansion, roll-out, and replication, is defined as the ability of a system to improve its scale by aiming to meet the increasing volume demand. Specifically, this study investigates the scalability intended to be used as expansion and roll-out. A qualitative case study was conducted to fulfill the research purpose. The chosen case study is SMOOTh, a pilot project currently underway in the city of Gothenburg, Sweden, involving a diverse group of companies including Volvo Group and DHL. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven of the project’s stakeholders. Through a thematic analysis, four categories and the respective success factors were identified. These were represented by a business model, as well as technical, stakeholder and regulatory factors. The paper concludes with observations and recommendations aimed at the pilot initiatives, adding new perspectives to the upscaling debate.

Sustainable Urban Governance Networks, Data-driven Internet of Things Systems, and Wireless Sensor-based Applications in Smart City Logistics

Sustainable Urban Governance Networks, Data-driven Internet of Things Systems, and Wireless Sensor-based Applications in Smart City Logistics

Quality indicator of the smart city transportation and logistics system

Subject. The article considers functioning and development of process flows of transportation and logistics system of a smart city. Objectives. The study identifies factors and dependencies of the quality of human life on the organization and management of stream processes. Methods. I perform a comparative analysis of previous studies, taking into account the uniquely designed results, and the econometric analysis. Results. The study builds multiple regression models that are associated with stream processes, highlights interdependent indicators of temporary traffic and pollution that affect the indicator of life quality. However, the identified congestion indicator enables to predict the time spent in traffic jams per year for all participants of stream processes. Conclusions. The introduction of modern intelligent transportation systems as a component of the transportation and logistics system of a smart city does not fully solve the problems of congestion in cities at the current rate of urbanization and motorization. A viable solution is to develop cooperative and autonomous intelligent transportation systems based on the logistics approach. This will ensure control over congestion, the reduction of which will contribute to improving the life quality of people in urban areas.

LAST MILE LOGISTICS IN THE FRAMEWORK OF SMART CITIES: A TYPOLOGY OF CITY LOGISTICS SCHEMES

Abstract. As current cities are attributed to particular dynamism consists of population density and increased urbanization, urban areas are facing some challenges for city logistics, both in terms of economic, environmental, and social impact. Especially, the debates over last-mile logistics are arising with inefficiencies in delivery cost (half truckload on delivery) and delivery time per parcel (unnecessary waiting-load periods at multiple stops) while inner-urban areas are especially suffered from traffic congestion, emission, and noise pollution. In this regard, smart cities as a concept with the potential to produce sustainable solutions to urban problems bring along with the need for innovative urban logistics systems to make conventional distribution channels of the city up to date. The key objective tackled in this paper can be defined as the identification of the city logistics schemes with highlighting current approaches in smart cities. The study adopts a systemic approach based on the typology of consolidation-distribution schemes in city logistics to define the feasibility of micro logistics initiatives from the scope of the smart city consisting of mobility, sustainability, and liveability. Thanks to a detailed examination of city logistics dynamics, this study can contribute theoretically to smart city logistics literature as well as practically the logistics sector.

Crowdsource-enabled integrated production and transportation scheduling for smart city logistics

With city logistics becoming more and more important, increasing attention has been paid to the ‘last-mile delivery’ in urban areas. We investigate a novel crowdsource-enabled integrated production and transportation scheduling problem in the paper. The problem is first formulated into a mixed-integer linear program and its strong NP-hardness is proved. To better understand this complex problem, two sub-problems: a production and transportation scheduling problem and a crowdsourced bid selection problem are analysed. Based on problem properties, a Genetic Algorithm (GA) and a lower bound (LB) are developed to solve the original problem. Experimental results with up to 100 customers show that the GA outperforms the well-known commercial MIP solver CPLEX. Especially, (1) the GA can yield near-optimal solutions for all the tested instances with an average gap of 10.17% from the lower bound, while CPLEX provides feasible solutions only for instances with no more than 30 customers; (2) the average computation time of the GA is only 0.93% of that required by CPLEX; Besides, sensitivity analysis demonstrates advantages of introducing crowdsourced delivery into city logistics.

Smart city logistics

It can be argued that the scientific paradigm of sustainable development is only partially formed and today there is constant research, searches for the form, and methods of its increment. In the scientific literature (political discussions), this is one of the most used terms due to the wider coverage of the studied areas, as well as a long history in retrospect. But today the most used term is the category of a smart city, which goes beyond the usual discussions about the development of information and communication technologies, and the effective use of information serves as the basis for effective management and functioning of the city. At the same time, logistics expands the possibilities for the formation of a smart city, contributes to economic development, an increase in the quality of human life, the efficiency of the use of economic resources, optimization of flow and non-flow processes, the accumulation of large material, financial, labor and other resources for a competitive practical goal, providing flexibility, adaptability, and competitiveness in conditions for the formation of a digital society.

Análise bibliométrica em publicações relacionadas a logística e mobilidade urbana no contexto de smart city

Este estudo busca apresentar como vem sendo abordada nos artigos acadêmicos asdimensões da logística e mobilidade urbana no contexto da smart city. Para isso,procedeu-se a uma revisão da literatura por meio de uma análise bibliométrica emproduções científicas na base de dados web of science, sendo feita uma análisequantitativa dos dados. Em seguida, foi feita uma análise de conteúdo. A partir de umrefinamento dos dados da pesquisa, um total de 572 artigos internacionais foramverificados no período entre 2007 a 2017. Os principais resultados apontam umcrescimento nas publicações com tema de smart city relacionadas a logística e mobilidadeurbana a partir de 2015 com 114 publicações, sendo mais evidente em 2016 com 212publicações. A análise revelou também que muitos dos artigos identificados estãofortemente associados aos aspectos da mobilidade urbana e sustentabilidade, e poucosobre a essência da logística, identificando um gap científico para o desenvolvimento depesquisas futuras associadas com as abordagens de smart city e logística.

Evaluation of smart city logistics solutions with fuzzy MCDM methods

City logistics, which started to examine as a subdivision of logistics, aims the planning and management of transportation, efficiency, protection of the environment, reduction of traffic, security, and energy-saving. Rapidly growing population and migration from rural to urban areas have an important place in many of the problems of cities. A smart city is an approach that has a significant potential to solve urban logistics problems with information technologies. Smart city logistics such as full adaptive traffic management system, security, and emergency systems, electronic detection system, etc. present based on information technologies to meet the increasing demand for logistics services more efficiently, safely and environmentally. In this study, the evaluation of smart city logistics solutions that contain many components is considered as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. Given the complex nature of this problem and insufficient knowledge, the decision-making approach is supported by fuzzy logic. In this context, the smart city logistics solutions in Istanbul determined by literature review and expert opinions are modeled, analyzed, and the results are interpreted by using the House of Quality matrix of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) approach with fuzzy MCDM methods.

Development of IT services in urban space – Smart City Logistics

Development of IT services in urban space – Smart City Logistics

The critical success factors of building smart green city logistics business in Fuzhou

This paper intends to find the critical success factors for smart green city logistics business in Fuzhou. We first investigate and collect the factors that impact the operations of smart green city logistics business. In order to acquire the experts’ assessments on the influence between each two factors, we invite the managers who serve in the top five logistics companies in Fujian and conduct expect questionnaire investigation. By using DEMATEL method, we explore the causal effect among factors. Our findings show that the government investments and green power development are the two most influential factors among all.

A progressive hedging method for the multi-path travelling salesman problem with stochastic travel times

In this paper, we consider a recently introduced problem specifically designed for Smart Cities and City Logistics applications: the multi-path travelling salesman problem with stochastic travel costs (mpTSPs)(mpTSPs). The mpTSPsmpTSPs is a variant of the TSP problem where a set of paths exists between any two nodes and each path is characterized by a random travel time. We propose a two-stage stochastic programming formulation where tour design makes up the first stage, while recourse decisions related to the choice of the path to follow are made in the second stage. To solve this formulation, we propose a heuristic method inspired by the Progressive Hedging (PH) algorithm of Rockafellar & Wets (1991, Scenarios and policy aggregation in optimization under uncertainty. Math. Oper. Res., 16, 119–147.) We then benchmark the solution method by solving model instances derived from the traffic speed sensor network of the city of Turin. Furthermore, the impact of the stochastic travel time costs on the problem solution is examined, showing the benefits of the proposed methodology in both solution quality and computational effort when compared to solving the deterministic equivalent formulation using a commercial solver.