by Walther Ploos van Amstel
Automation represents the next big buzz in transport and promises many benefits for society, including more efficient use of space, energy, and time and reduced costs. Accordingly, an impressive range of autonomous vehicles has been introduced, covering personal and goods transport applications. In particular, in response to the global pandemic linked to COVID-19, autonomous vehicles …
A new paper assesses how various ways of organizing last-mile logistics impact resource utilization and, in turn, opportunities for consolidating goods. The paper combines a conceptualization of resourcing and consolidation from the literature with an analysis of contemporary last-mile logistics options in the Swedish retail market. Based on the analysis of three forms of last-mile …
A New Ph.D. thesis by Dávid Lajos Sárdi of Budapest University of Technology and Economics looked at hubs for city logistics in Budapest (Hungary). First, he looked at urban concentrated sets of delivery locations (CSDLs). Then, he presented the application of a new consolidation-based concept to the city logistics system of the CSDLs and the …
The transport of goods, equipment, and waste to, from, in, and through urban areas (city or urban logistics) is essential for the economic vitality of the city but, at the same time, makes urban environmental and social targets more difficult to achieve The European Green Deal and the UN Sustainability Goals also challenge the ways …
Van Duin, Ploos van Amstel and Quak (2022) wrote a chapter in Innovations in Transport explaining the growth in light electric freight vehicles. Literature on ex-post analysis based on real cases with LEFV usage is limited. The application of the Technological Innovation System (TIS) framework can provide insight into the cumulative systematic change toward more …
When refrigerated products are delivered using a mobile cooler with electric transport, there are no CO2 emissions. It also reduced the number of transport movements in Amsterdam during a trial initiated by Dutch Leen Menken Foodservice Logistics and Rijkswaterstaat this spring. The test took place in Amsterdam Zuid. Further research and deploying multiple mobile cool …
Unlike autonomous car applications, the operational area of urban service autonomous robots like autonomous delivery robots (ADRs) is not clearly defined. Moreover, assessing the feasibility of various operating scenarios is difficult due to large variations in the different robot designs, specific local infrastructure, and regulations. A new paper presents a prototype evaluation methodology based on …
The expanding freight traffic in the courier, express, and parcel services (CEP) sector is increasingly posing major challenges to urban agglomerations. The main driver for this development is the dynamic growth of e-commerce, as it causes a change in consumer behavior towards an on-demand economy and continuous growth in the volume of shipments in the …
How can urban freight in densely populated cities be organized smartly and sustainably? The final report of the joint project Smart Zone Stuttgart, commissioned by the state capital Stuttgart, the Fraunhofer IAO, the cooperating IAT of the University of Stuttgart, and ParkUnload shows what digital delivery zone management in the state capital can look like …
The maturation of online consumption and the amplification of cities’ initiatives in response to local and global environmental challenges has placed goods transport, an essential but impactful activity, at the forefront of urban stakeholders’ scrutiny. High-performance and low-impact supply chains benefit from the presence of logistics facilities near goods’ destinations. The development of logistics facilities …