Urban Consolidation Centres Research Articles

A new model for Last-Mile Delivery and Satellite Depots management: The impact of the on-demand economy

Two-tier city logistics systems are playing a very important role nowadays in the management of urban freight activities. Although several city authorities have promoted different measures to foster the implementation of small urban consolidation centers in a two-tier system, only a few authors have addressed the joint problem of operating these facilities and providing services to customers. We show how the problem can be modeled as a new variant of the bin packing, for which we provide a mixed integer programming formulation and two heuristics that are shown to be quite effective in solving efficiently and to near optimality the problem. The application of our approach on real data from the city of Turin puts into highlight the superiority of the consolidation approach, including the bundle of goods from different providers, stockholding and other value-added logistics services, over the classical single-tier approach. In addition, the paper provides a thorough analysis of some emerging aspects of the on-demand economy, as the consideration of customers’ preferences and the integration of multiple delivery options. The managerial insights coming from this work will be part of the new Logistics and Mobility Plan to be activated in 2022 in the Piedmont region.

AN EX-ANTE ASSESSMENT OF CITY DISTRIBUTION ALTERNATIVES BASED ON MULTI ACTOR MULTI CRITERIA FRAMEWORK

Recently, urban areas face challenges that result from negative externalities of traditional distribution networks. Especially, city actors increasingly suffer from issues as inefficient load factors in operations, traffic volume on roads, and noise pollution. To overcome these problems, modern city distribution patterns integrated with the consolidation strategy have the potential to provide satisfying solutions. Align with city actors’ expectations, alternatives of consolidation-distribution schemes can offer improvements in both economic, social, and environmental issues. In particular, this study aims at an ex-ante evaluation of city distribution alternatives on the typology of consolidation-distribution schemes ensuring win-win solutions to each city actor. This paper adopts Multi Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA) as a novel approach to evaluating different city actors’ objectives and a set of city distribution alternatives comprehensively. The paper results highlight that micro consolidation centre facilities can be more suitable in response to city actors’ expectations among distribution alternatives to urban consolidation centre and mobile depot. Finally, future research in this topic can focus on evaluating distribution alternatives on a sector basis and marketing types such as B2B and B2C.

A theoretical framework to evaluate the traffic impact of urban freight consolidation centres

City logistics and goods movement using road freight is an outcome of the economic activities that sustain urban life. However, they produce negative externalities like traffic congestion and pollution. There are key areas within cities that are largely affected by logistics activities, such as commercial centres and retail districts. These locations attract many freight vehicles attempting to fulfil deliveries, often with limited parking supply. This results in long queues of delivery trucks waiting for parking spaces or illegal kerbside parking. Therefore, urban planners and decision-makers are motivated to initiate policies that can mitigate these impacts. Urban freight management policies like delivery time or truck size restrictions, and Urban Consolidation Centres (UCC) have been proposed as potential solutions. A UCC is a facility that allows deliveries to be consolidated before entering a busy commercial area. The focus of this study is to offer a theoretical framework for predicting the impact of a UCC on the number of freight trips attracted to a retail district in any city. A mathematical model is developed and used to analyse two possible policy cases concerning the location of a UCC: one where the UCC is located within the retail district, and another where the UCC is located outside the retail district. This model is subsequently applied to examine a retail district in Singapore using real-world data. The critical level of participation in a UCC scheme required for the retail district to experience fewer freight trips is characterised. The results show a diminishing marginal benefit associated with achieving greater consolidation by operating the UCC. This contribution offers a theoretical explanation for the traffic impacts of urban freight consolidation, and aids with the development an ex-ante evaluation of a UCC. The model may be readily applied to any city considering this initiative, by adjusting the model parameters for local conditions.

Urban Consolidation Center or Peer-to-Peer Platform? The Solution to Urban Last-Mile Delivery

Booming e-commerce activities further increase this demand, exerting intense pressure on the cities' well-being. To build a city with congestion and pollution under control, a consolidator can operate an urban consolidation center (UCC) to bundle shipments from multiple carriers before the last-mile delivery. Alternatively, the consolidator can operate a peer-to-peer platform for the carriers to share their delivery capacity. Our objective is to compare the performance of these two business models. Under each business model, we study the interactions between a consolidator and multiple carriers using a two-period game-theoretical model. In each period, the consolidator first chooses a delivery fee to maximize her expected profit. Each carrier then observes his task volume, and decides whether to deliver on his own or use the consolidator's service to minimize his expected cost. Under the UCC model, the carriers become more dependent on the UCC to deliver their tasks as their variable delivery cost increases or their logistics reestablishment cost decreases. Under the platform model, the carriers generally keep their logistics capability (even if they purchase capacity from the platform) in equilibrium to ensure their flexibility of selling capacity on the platform. Between the two business models, it is generally more profitable for the consolidator to operate the UCC than the platform if the carriers' fixed delivery cost is large. Furthermore, the UCC becomes more dominant as there are more carriers. If the number of carriers is large, it is also more efficient for the consolidator to operate the UCC than the platform to reduce the expected social-environmental cost. Otherwise, the platform is more efficient.

Models of zoning of urban territory for rational delivery in the microconsolidation system

Urban logistics (or city logistics) is developing rapidly due to the strong growth of e-commerce. Accordingly, the last-mile urban logistics faces a significant number of orders that need to be fulfilled in a dense urban development, environmental constraints and permanent congestion. One of the possible systems of rational city delivery is the use of a network of consolidation centers at the micro level. Such a network provides for a two-tier system of urban delivery - 1) from the central warehouse or warehouses to the network of microconsolidation centers; 2) from microconsolidation centers to end consumers. This scheme is especially relevant in the presence of restrictions on the movement of trucks or heavy vehicles in certain areas of the city, as well as in significant congestion and the problem of parking trucks when unloading at the location of the client. Methods (research methodology). To create a rational delivery network through a microconsolidation system, the primary task is to determine the delivery zones (or geographical clusters) - their number, size, location. To solve this problem, optimization models are proposed based on several minimization criteria - delivery distance, time, cost and integrated distance-time criterion. Results. The result is the optimization models creation, based on those it is possible to divide urban consumers into several delivery zones. Delivery routes are planned within each zone of the respective centroid and minimize the cost of last-mile logistics. Delivery of goods to the centroids can be carried out by light or medium trucks, and within the zones should be dominated by delivery of environmentally friendly modes of transport (motorcycle or moped, bicycle, car, on foot delivery with the possibility of public transport usage). Conclusion. Thus, the article provides a mathematical apparatus for obtaining territorial zoning of existing customers of the city in order to minimize the cost (distance, time or their combination) for delivery within each zone. Perspectives. A perspective study may be an analysis of the costs of operating a network of urban consolidation centers and the delivery of goods from the central warehouse or warehouses to this network. Accordingly, the task of minimizing the total costs of the city freight delivery system should be solved, taking into account economic, environmental and social aspects.

Application of an empirical multi-agent model for urban goods transport to analyze impacts of zero emission zones in The Netherlands

Reducing emissions caused by urban freight transportation is an increasingly important policy objective for transportation planners around the world. New and innovative ways of data collection provide new possibilities to analyze these issues. In this paper we present MASS-GT, a new multi-agent simulation system for urban goods transport. The empirical basis is provided by an exceptionally large dataset of truck trip travel diaries for The Netherlands that was collected from transportation management systems using an automated data collection interface. The dataset is very dense and includes information on vehicles, routes, and shipments carried.The strategic part of the model simulates the formation of individual shipments based on logistic processes at a strategic level, such as sourcing, distribution channel choice and shipment size choice. At tactical level disaggregate choices are simulated for tour formation, vehicle type- and time of day choice, based on observed distributions. The multi-agent approach allows to implement heterogeneous preferences and thus differentiated responses to new policies.We present an application of the model to study the impacts of urban consolidation centers (UCC) and zero emission zones. The freight transportation volumes transported to these UCC and their impact on logistic indicators are analyzed. Simulation results show that vehicle kilometers travelled within the wider region increase with the introduction of UCC, and at the same time the efficiency of deliveries increases as well. Thus the model allows to study trade-offs between regional and local systems that emerge from different behavioural responses to policies.

Evaluating Urban Logistics Schemes Using Agent-based Simulation

The domain of urban freight transport is becoming increasingly complex. Many urban supply chains are composed of small and independent actors that cannot efficiently organize their highly fragmented supply chains, thereby negatively affecting the quality of life in urban areas. Both companies and local administrators try to improve transport efficiency and reduce external costs, but the effects of such interventions are difficult to predict, especially when applied in combination with each other (an urban logistics scheme). This paper presents an agent-based simulation model to quantify the effects of urban logistics schemes on multiple actors. We provide a detailed mathematical representation in the form of a Markov decision process. Based on an extensive literature study, we aggregate data to represent various actors in typical Western European cities. We perform numerical experiments to obtain insights into urban logistics schemes. The results show that most schemes yield significant environmental improvements but that achieving long-term financial viability is challenging for urban consolidation centers in particular. We also demonstrate that interventions, such as subsidies and access restrictions, do not always yield the intended effect. In a backcasting experiment, we identify conditions and schemes to achieve a financially viable urban consolidation center.

A Multi-commodity Network Flow Model for Sustainable Performance Evaluation in City Logistics: Application to the Distribution of Multi-tenant Buildings in Tokyo

The distribution of goods in crowded city centers is a major challenge. In this paper, we propose a methodology for evaluating the performance of a parcel distribution network in city logistics. This methodology encompasses the main entities of a two-tier distribution system made up of carriers, huge shopping centers (multi-tenant buildings) and intermediate depots (urban consolidation centers), as well as the parcel flows between them. This methodology aims to optimize the transport flows (distance traveled) of a given distribution network while also quantifying the impact in terms of sustainable development by measuring gas emissions. Two different states of the network with different connectivity degrees are evaluated and compared: the current state of the network as well as its future state. The transport network modeling is based on a network flow, which is expressed in linear programming and implemented with an optimization solver. The validation of this methodology is based on the parcel distribution of the Multi-tenant Buildings of the city of Tokyo. The findings are that the network with greater connectivity between the entities brings significant traveled distance reduction as well as a reduction of emissions of CO2. Another finding is that the grouping of the parcels (i.e., pooling) brings a reduction of the distance traveled compared to the transport organization without grouping and contributes to a reduction in the number of trucks.

The Kaldor–Hicks Criterion Applied to Economic Evaluation of Urban Consolidation Centers

Urban Consolidation Centers (UCC) cases, like in Tenjin, Japan, or in Lucca, Italy, have shown vehicle optimization and a decrease in environmental and social impacts of freight transportation activities. Nonetheless, financial sustainability is a barrier for their operation, especially because it is not common to consider environmental and social impacts in cost–benefit analysis. There is a lack of literature about the economic evaluation of UCC addressing stakeholder’s cost–benefit with reduction of externalities. The objective of this paper is to present an example of how to incorporate social and environmental impact in a UCC economic evaluation and according to the Kaldor–Hicks criterion, to demonstrate that UCC implementations might be justified even when public subsidies are necessary. A neighborhood of São Paulo city, Brazil, was used as a reference for a simulated UCC implementation. The simulated direct costs of the UCC operations were 13.7% higher than the baseline scenario, however, using the Kaldor–Hicks criterion and incorporating benefits for stakeholders, the benefits compensate the additional operating cost. This new approach to UCC economic evaluation that monetizes and incorporates environmental and social benefits for stakeholders might support decision-makers to optimize freight transportation systems while reducing negative effects of this activity.

Running an urban consolidation centre: Binnenstadservice 10 years back and forth

Urban consolidation centres (UCCs) have been discussed over many years in the city logistics literature. The amount of successful UCCs in the long run were, and are, very scarce, though. Little is published on the practical issues and experiences of running a UCC and offering UCC-services. In the Netherlands, Binnenstadservice (BSS) has run UCCs and UCC services for over a decade now. This contribution discusses development and the experiences of running a UCC in practice in the form of seven lessons, including the evolvement of the business model and organisation model, as well as the development from offering ‘only’ the cross-dock of physical flows, to that of the full triple cross-dock, including financial and information flows. Next, UCCs can be the answer to future challenges, such as zero emission city logistics and fit perfectly into the Physical Internet vision.

Multi-agent simulation-Adaptive dynamic programming based reinforcement learning for evaluating joint delivery systems in relation to the different locations of urban consolidation centres

This research applied Multi-agent Simulation-Adaptive Dynamic Programming based Reinforcement Learning (MAS-ADP based RL) to evaluate Joint Delivery Systems (JDS) in relation to different locations of Urban Consolidation Centres in Yokohama, Japan. The MAS-ADP based RL is capable of replicating the potential actions of modeled agents in an uncertain environment accurately. The application of MAS-ADP based RL in this research shows that the location of UCC influences the behavior of freight carriers and the UCC operator in the JDS. Therefore, it is essential to conduct a feasibility study of UCC location to support JDS using MAS-ADP based RL to get better evaluation outcomes.

A Study on Factors for Selecting Location of Urban Consolidation Center considering Sustainability -Case of Ulaanbaatar Mongolia-

A Study on Factors for Selecting Location of Urban Consolidation Center considering Sustainability -Case of Ulaanbaatar Mongolia-

Carbon credits and urban freight consolidation: An experiment using agent based simulation

Consolidation of goods is a promising strategy for reducing city logistics problems. For the last two decades, the concept of urban consolidation centres (UCCs) has been implemented in different cities. UCCs that were started for special subsectors (e.g. construction material handling) are relatively successful; however, general purpose UCCs are not performing well at all. Most UCCs are financially dependent on government support. The UCC concept can be successfully implemented by developing a consistent subsidy or tax scheme aiming to internalize the negative external effects of conventional urban goods distribution. In this paper, we describe and test such policy - a delivery cap and price (DCAP) scenario, combined with a subsidy for a UCC alternative – to reduce carbon emissions for urban goods delivery. The scenario introduces a cap on goods deliveries made to shopkeepers by conventional vehicles, using so-called carbon credit points (CCPs). We demonstrate this policy with a stylized implementation of a city logistics agent based model for the inner city of Rotterdam. The results indicate that this financial scheme could positively influences the use of UCC, ensures its financial viability and significantly reduce the external effects of urban freight transport.

Roles and Perspectives When Estimating Energy and Environmental Potentials of Urban Consolidation

Urban consolidation centers (UCCs) are presumed to provide more efficient goods distribution in cities and lead to decreased environmental impact and energy usage. There is, however, limited knowledge as to the actual performance of UCCs, and what roles and perspectives the involved actors have in the performance measurement. The overall aim of this paper is to investigate the roles and perspectives of involved actors when estimating and evaluating the performance of UCCs. The article is based on a study of one case that evaluates the performance of a UCC involving several actors. Interviews were triangulated with documents from the case. The results showed that actors have different roles in performance measurements and even if they share a mutual interest in conducting the measurements, they did not share opinions regarding factors such as system limits or performance indicators. The study provides a deeper understanding of the importance of inter-organizational interaction when conducting performance measurements. The study provides additional insights into the roles of the actors and their perspectives in logistics performance measurement that targets energy usage and environmental impact. These aspects are seldom addressed in less complex estimations or mathematical modelling estimations.

Stakeholders perceptions to sustainable urban freight policies in emerging markets

Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze the perceptions of key stakeholders to a set of policies designed to address urban logistics issues in two cities in Colombia. A ranking survey was conducted and analyzed unveiling levels of acceptance to the proposed policies for three types of stakeholders (Carriers, Receivers, and Citizens). Though some methodologies attempt to understand stakeholders’ perspectives towards urban freight policies, often only a certain type of stakeholder is considered; perceptions of Citizens are usually overlooked. The results suggest that stakeholders agree on the importance of having space to conduct freight operations in their urban areas. However, different stakeholders perceive policies differently and local context plays a key role, suggesting that decision-makers must consider these aspects before transferring initiatives from other urban settings. When space for freight operations cannot be provided, the results show that Carriers prefer a Receiver-led Consolidation program, Receivers consider an Urban Consolidation Center as the best alternative, and Citizens prefer Off-hour deliveries. While all of the preferred alternatives call for a more active role played by the other stakeholders, they also call for more sustainable practices and move away from traditional, restrictive policies. The results from this study serve as a tool for planners and decision-makers seeking input on the preferences of various stakeholders to, and the potential acceptability of, urban freight policies.

Impacts of Urban Consolidation Centres for Sustainable City Logistics Using Adaptive Dynamic Programming Based Multi-Agent Simulation

This paper aims at evaluating the impacts of Urban Consolidation Centers (UCC) for sustainable city logistics using Adaptive Dynamic Programming (ADP) based multi-agent simulation (MAS-ADP). Economic efficiency and environment friendliness criteria were used to evaluate the sustainability of UCC. The results proved that the implementation of UCC as a sustainable city logistics scheme is efficient in reducing 8% of the total delivery cost for freight carrier and reducing 36% of the total emissions released to the environment. It is also showed that the use of learning agents is essential to demonstrate the successful implementation of the UCC, as it is only in the learning-based simulation, UCC operator could get a profit. Our simulation analysis also confirmed that compared to widely used reinforced learning algorithms (Q-learning), MAS-ADP brought increased accuracy to the evaluations’ outcomes of UCC.

Gain-sharing in urban consolidation centers

Urban consolidation centers provide the logistical infrastructure for cooperation among less-than-truckload carriers with contiguous destinations. The rising number of initiatives to establish and operate urban consolidation centers and their low success rates signal the need for better mechanisms to manage cooperation in this context. We introduce and study cooperative situations comprising a set of carriers with time sensitive deliveries who can consolidate their cargo to obtain savings. We introduce the class of Dispatch Consolidation (DC) games and search for ways to fairly allocate the obtained savings among the participating carriers. When delivery capacities are not restrictive, i.e. when waiting costs trigger truck dispatches, we show that stable allocations in the core always exist and can, in their entirety, be found by solving a compact linear program. With restrictive capacities, however, the core of a DC game may become empty. We introduce the notion of component-wise core for DC games to preserve stability first and foremost among the carriers whose deliveries are dispatched together in the chosen optimal solutions. The novelty of our approach is to link the stability requirements of an allocation rule with the structure of selected solutions for the underlying optimization problems. We characterize the component-wise cores of DC games, prove their non-emptiness, and suggest proportionally calculated allocations therein. Finally, we discuss a refinement of component-wise core allocations that minimizes envy among the carriers who are dispatched separately.

Modeling city logistics using adaptive dynamic programming based multi-agent simulation

The effects of city logistics solutions are uncertain due to fluctuating demand, parking issues and multiple agents within the system. This research modelled the behavior of freight carriers and an Urban Consolidation Center (UCC) operator using Multi-Agent Simulation-Adaptive Dynamic Programming based Reinforcement Learning (MAS-ADP based RL) to evaluate a Joint Delivery Systems in an uncertain environment. The MAS-ADP based RL is superior to MAS-Q-learning in replicating the potential actions of the agents under uncertain environment by adapting to the changing environment properly into accurate decisions thus increasing the accuracy of agent’s decision making and eventually reducing environmental emissions as well.

An urban consolidation center in the city of Copenhagen: A simulation study

Urban consolidation centers (UCCs) have a key role in many initiatives in urban logistics, yet few of them are successful in the long run. The high costs often prevent attracting a sufficient number of UCC users. In this paper, we study sustainable business models and the supporting role of administrative policies. We perform an agent-based simulation applied to the city of Copenhagen and collect data from a variety of sources to model the agents. Both the data and case setup are validated by means of expert interviews. We test 1,458 schemes that combine several administrative measures and cost settings. Most schemes yield significant environmental benefits; many of them reduce the truck kilometers driven by about 65% and emissions by about 70%. The key challenge is to identify schemes that are also financially sustainable. We show the importance of committing carriers to the UCC as soon as possible, as carriers potentially generate the bulk of the revenue. Subsequent revenues may be generated by offering value-adding services to receivers. Based on the numerical experiments, we pose various propositions that aid in providing favorable conditions for a UCC, improving its chances of long-term success.

Planning with stakeholders: Analysing alternative off-hour delivery solutions via an interactive multi-criteria approach

Many cities of different size and in different areas of the world have successfully tested the introduction of off-hour deliveries (OHD) on a voluntary basis, reporting positive effects, both on freight distribution efficiency and sustainability. However, those initiatives have not been implemented so far at a large scale. This paper investigates OHD potential in Rome, focusing on one of the most important barriers to its adoption, i.e. stakeholder acceptability. The study investigates stakeholders' preferences for different OHD configurations using both a qualitative approach, based on in-depth interviews, and a quantitative analysis, based on an interactive multi-actor multi-criteria analysis. Results show that stakeholders prefer a solution where OHD are jointly implemented together with one or more urban consolidation centres. This preliminary analysis paves the way for further technical/economic evaluations needed for OHD implementation in Rome. Stakeholders’ involvement is of outmost importance to understand their heterogeneous preferences and increase their awareness of urban freight transport problems, with the overall aim to foster behaviour change.