UPS named winner in IDC’s Best in Future of Operations North American Awards

International Data Corporation (IDC) announced UPS was named Overall Winner of the IDC Future Enterprise Best in Future of Operations North America Awards for its “On-road Dynamic Route Optimization and Navigation” (ORION 3.0) project. The annual awards recognize an organization that can rethink how operations are managed. At the heart of ORION 3.0 is UPS’s desire to …

Exploratory scenario analysis: the future of urban logistics in 2040

Urban logistics is characterized by a high degree of freight flow fragmentation, the employment of various delivery methods, and the use of various vehicle capacities. Urban logistics is essential for inhabitants’ quality of life, both negatively and positively. It plays a prominent economic role with significant advantages for multiple stakeholders along complex, dynamic supply chains. …

Experts’ opinions about lasting innovative technologies in City Logistics

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the relevance of goods delivery in urban areas. However, this activity often generates a negative environmental impact. Several technologies have been proposed in recent years to reduce it, thus forming a complex innovation landscape characterized by different levels of maturity and effects on the City Logistics (CL) system. This complexity …

On-Demand Logistics: solutions, barriers, and enablers

The urban freight sector provides an essential service by delivering goods that shops, companies, and households require at a specific place and time. However, the growth of e-commerce and the dawn of on-demand logistics (after this ODL) have raised citizens’ expectations of logistics systems, further stressing them and increasing their operational and environmental costs. There …

Meet delivery-bot THEO

THEO is a semi-autonomous, emission-free, bot-as-a-service trike optimized for bike lanes, maximizing functionality and safety. When bike lanes are unavailable, they are also swift, lightweight, and agile enough to run in conventional car lanes and travel around in a city without causing congestion. THEO will seamlessly integrate with the backend of on-demand delivery providers, such …

Barriers to change in urban freight systems: a systematic literature review

A new paper by Mikael Kervall and Henrik Pålsson presents a systematic review covering 93 peer-reviewed journal articles. The study was designed to advance earlier research in this area by providing a system perspective on barriers to development in urban freight systems. The theoretical knowledge about these barriers was analyzed and synthesized, the relationships between …

What is the potential for shared autonomous cargo-bike fleets?

Finding a sustainable mobility solution for the future is one of the most competitive challenges in the logistics and mobility sector. As a result, policymakers, researchers, and companies are working intensively to provide novel, environmentally friendly, and sustainable options. While autonomous car-sharing services have been introduced as a promising solution, an innovative alternative is the …

Swobbee can fast-charge the use of light electric vehicles in city logistics

New logistics concepts can save cities from gridlock even as city logistics volumes are rising. For example, electric cargo bikes and other light electric vehicles handle inner city deliveries from strategically located micro-hubs, replacing diesel-powered vans. For logisticians, it means no inner city access restrictions, no search for parking spaces, and no shortage of drivers …