Transportation Review Research Articles

Facility Location in Logistics and Transportation: An enduring relationship

This article aims at contributing to the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review (TRE). It provides an overview of the role of Facility Location in Logistics and Transportation highlighting the contribution of TRE to such an enduring relationship. Several conventional problems are revisited showing that the three above fields have been intertwined for a long time. Nevertheless, the role of Facility Location has become even stronger in the past decades due to challenges posed by new technological developments together with a fast economy globalization and a strong increase in environmental concerns. This has called for the study of more complex problems and the development of comprehensive mathematical models leading to major advances in areas such as reverse and green logistics, humanitarian supply chains, and multimodal transportation, to mention a few. These and other related topics are discussed. Hedging against uncertainty has gained much practical relevance and thus it will be much in focus throughout the paper. Several current trends and future challenges are thoroughly discussed. These include but are not limited to the steps already made and those still missing for paving the way from Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0, as well as the challenges posed by data-driven decision making in the Era of big data.

Transportation research Part E-logistics and transportation review: 25 years in retrospect

We have witnessed the rapid growth and impact of Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review (TRE) in both supply chain and transportation communities since it was founded in 1997 with a particular focus on logistics and transportation. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of TRE (1997–2021), we aim to investigate impactful research topics addressed by TRE in the past 25 years, review their research methodologies, and analyze their trends. To achieve the objective, we collect 2,268 documents published in TRE during 1997–2021. Based on these documents and their citations, we identify hot research topics over time and reveal their evolution using the bibliometric analysis approach. We further shed light on seven emerging research topics and point out the future valuable research directions.

Highway Maintenance Outsourcing Experience: Synopsis of Washington State Department of Transportation's Review

Can outsourcing of traditional categories of state-provided highway maintenance produce savings in costs or improvements in service? While marketing materials and promotional press releases tout the attractions of outsourcing, insufficient attention has been paid to a growing body of follow-up information—much of it from official audit sources—of actual outsourcing experience. Presented are after-the-fact reviews of the performance of highway maintenance outsourcing from programs in five states and British Columbia. Cases noted include ones in which costs may have gone up instead of down, services deteriorated rather than improved, administrative and supervisory arrangements proved problematic, and contractor failures left states scrambling to provide services or caught in the distraction of litigation. Despite the range of experiences, common themes emerging from these reviews can be translated into lessons learned for state officials considering programs of this type. One clear lesson is the need for proper planning and scoping. Initial exploratory phases should include asset inventories, activity-based costs, and economic analyses based on before-and-after apples-to-apples cost comparisons. Risk-management reviews should consider litigation risks and costs. Managers should develop program exit strategies in addition to well-written contracts and specifications. Contracts should include clear performance expectations, evaluation schedules, and financial performance incentives or disincentives. Finally, an experienced management team must be in place to administer and evaluate contracts. These lessons can support more effective use of public resources, leading to wiser choices about whether outsourcing should be undertaken, and, if it is, what public management strategies and resource commitments will be necessary to make it successful. This research was undertaken in part to prepare for legislation in Washington State that would open new possibilities for competitive contracting.