[ { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2884496230", "doi": "10.1016/j.tre.2018.07.004", "title": "Determining time windows in urban freight transport: A city cooperative approach", "year": 2018, "publication_date": "2018-07-26", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Derya Eren Akyol", "René B.M. de Koster" ], "first_author": "Derya Eren Akyol", "venue": "Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Window (computing)", "Time limit", "Business", "City logistics", "Computer science", "Engineering", "Operating system" ], "cited_by_count": 39, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1366554517308359" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4391735860", "doi": "10.1016/j.ejor.2024.02.010", "title": "Hybrid truck-drone delivery system with multi-visits and multi-launch and retrieval locations: Mathematical model and adaptive variable neighborhood search with neighborhood categorization", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-02-11", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Batool Madani", "Malick Ndiaye", "Saı̈d Salhi" ], "first_author": "Batool Madani", "venue": "European Journal of Operational Research", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Computer science", "Heuristic", "Operations research", "Variable neighborhood search", "Metaheuristic", "Mathematical optimization", "Artificial intelligence", "Engineering", "Mathematics" ], "cited_by_count": 51, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2024.02.010" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2011673920", "doi": "10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.10.010", "title": "Possibilities of Applying Electrically Powered Vehicles in Urban Freight Transport", "year": 2014, "publication_date": "2014-10-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Stanisław Iwan", "Kinga Kijewska", "Dawid Kijewski" ], "first_author": "Stanisław Iwan", "venue": "Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "The negative environmental impacts from urban freight transport and deliveries to a large extent are derived from the fact that conventionally fuelled vehicles are mainly used for transporting goods. Many countries, including all those in the EU, have implemented regulations aimed at setting high technical parameters for conventionally fuelled vehicles in order to reduce their negative impacts, however, in the long term it seems to be insufficient. This, combined with the issue of oil resources depletion, leads to the need to search for alternative forms of delivery transport. One such solution is electric vehicles. These are becoming more and more popular, nevertheless, but they are mainly used in passenger transport. This article analyses a selected range of electrically powered freight vehicles and points out possibilities of applying such vehicles to make deliveries in cities.", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Traffic management", "City logistics", "Range (aeronautics)", "Order (exchange)", "Business", "Passenger transport", "Green vehicle", "Electric vehicle", "Environmental economics", "Environmental science", "Automotive engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 35, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814054524/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4399724243", "doi": "10.1016/j.trc.2024.104698", "title": "Reliable truck-drone routing with dynamic synchronization: A high-dimensional network programming approach", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-06-17", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Jiahao Xing", "Tong Guo", "Lu Carol Tong" ], "first_author": "Jiahao Xing", "venue": "Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Drone", "Computer science", "Truck", "Synchronization (alternating current)", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Time synchronization", "Computer network", "Engineering", "Automotive engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 28, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2024.104698" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4388774605", "doi": "10.1080/23249935.2023.2282963", "title": "Coordinated logistics with trucks and drones for premium delivery", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-11-17", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Dongwook Kim", "Chang Seong Ko", "Ilkyeong Moon" ], "first_author": "Dongwook Kim", "venue": "Transportmetrica A Transport Science", "publisher": "Taylor & Francis", "abstract": "Last-mile delivery, the final stage of the delivery process before a package arrives at a customer's address, has emerged as an important business opportunity for inland transportation. As people's perception of last-mile delivery has changed, more customers are using premium delivery services to get the delivery at a specific time rather than just pursuing free shipping. In order to satisfy the new trend of logistics, we propose a delivery system in which several drones and trucks work together to provide service to customers within given time windows. In addition, pair constraints, which considered a truck and a drone as a pair, are relaxed to determine more flexible delivery plans. A three-stage savings-based heuristic procedure was also developed based on the concept of savings to determine the operations of trucks and drones in real-world settings. We found that the drone efficiently responds to urgent delivery requests from customers and that a delivery system that utilises both trucks and drones provides substantial benefits.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Last mile (transportation)", "Transport engineering", "Service (business)", "Order (exchange)", "Process (computing)", "Business", "Computer science", "Marketing", "Engineering", "Mile" ], "cited_by_count": 15, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1080/23249935.2023.2282963" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2890342775", "doi": "10.31534/co/zt.2018.18", "title": "Dynamic assignment of loading bays for efficient urban last mile deliveries", "year": 2018, "publication_date": "2018-09-11", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Tomislav Letnik", "Matej Mencinger", "Stanislav Božičnik" ], "first_author": "Tomislav Letnik", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "Urban freight deliveries are facing problems of limited accessibility to customers located in the city centre. Due to lack of loading bays, freight vehicles are forced to double parking or circulating in the city centre to find an available loading bay. To solve that problem a model for dynamic management of urban last mile deliveries has been developed. The optimisation is based on fuzzy c-means clustering of customers to dynamically assign the best possible loading bay in combination with a two-echelon routing algorithm. The model is tested on the actual data of deliveries to the historical city centre of Lucca, Italy. Results of simulations have proven significant savings of the total travel time and distance in comparison to the existing situation. The suggested approach is highly flexible and allows adaptation to any city access restriction scheme.", "keywords": [ "Last mile (transportation)", "Computer science", "Transport engineering", "Mile", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Bay", "Fuzzy logic", "Operations research", "Civil engineering", "Engineering", "Geography", "Computer network" ], "cited_by_count": 2, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.31534/co/zt.2018.18" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4200048714", "doi": "10.1016/j.trd.2021.103121", "title": "Vehicle telematics data for urban freight environmental impact analysis", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-12-06", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Simon Hu", "Siqi Shu", "Justin D.K. Bishop", "Xiaoxiang Na", "Marc E. J. Stettler" ], "first_author": "Simon Hu", "venue": "Transportation Research Part D Transport and Environment", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "Road freight transport is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions. Hence, it is increasingly regulated in urban areas to reduce its impact on the environment and human health. The rich data available from telematics has the potential to provide high-resolution information, yet research has not been conducted to understand, evaluate, and ultimately improve the operation and impacts of urban road freight. This paper demonstrates the role of vehicle telematics data in enabling quantitative assessment of the impacts of urban freight transport for the effective management of relevant policies. We present a comprehensive data-driven approach that provides a robust quantitative evaluation and applies it to a case study of the London Lorry Control Scheme (LLCS) policy in UK. We show that, for the studied freight operator, the LLCS policy affects their drivers’ route choice both inside and outside the restricted hours. The spatio-temporal distributions of different parameters including traffic speeds, fuel economy and emissions at different times of the day are compared and analyzed. The results indicate that the unintended consequences of urban freight transport policies can include an extra 15% vehicle-km traveled per trip and 12% liter of fuel consumed per trip.", "keywords": [ "Telematics", "Transport engineering", "Traffic management", "Greenhouse gas", "Truck", "Estimation", "Business", "Environmental science", "Environmental economics", "Environmental planning", "Computer science", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 32, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361920921004168/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3023662302", "doi": "10.1287/trsc.2019.0967", "title": "Approximation Algorithms for a New Truck Loading Problem in Urban Freight Transportation", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-05-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Jie Fan", "Guoqing Wang", "Matthias Thürer" ], "first_author": "Jie Fan", "venue": "Transportation Science", "publisher": "Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences", "abstract": "Motivated by urban freight transportation practices in China, we study an optimal truck loading problem in which a fixed cost and an additional cost that depends on the number of unloading points are associated with each truck used. The truck loading problem is modeled as a one-dimensional bin packing problem, where the cost of each bin is a convex fixed-plus-linear function of the number of items in the bin. The objective is to minimize the total cost of bins used. We develop an asymptotic polynomial time approximation scheme and an efficient approximation algorithm with an asymptotic worst-case performance ratio of 1.5 to tackle the problem. Our computational experiments indicate that the approximation algorithm performs well for certain order patterns, and also reveal several important insights on using the freight charge scheme.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Approximation algorithm", "Mathematical optimization", "Bin", "Polynomial-time approximation scheme", "Path (computing)", "Transportation theory", "Computer science", "Bin packing problem", "Function (biology)", "Scheme (mathematics)", "Mathematics" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1287/trsc.2019.0967" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3206146521", "doi": "10.3390/electronics10202510", "title": "On Optimizing a Multi-Mode Last-Mile Parcel Delivery System with Vans, Truck and Drone", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-10-15", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Chuan Wang", "Hongjie Lan", "Francisco Saldanha‐da‐Gama", "Youhua Chen" ], "first_author": "Chuan Wang", "venue": "Electronics", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "This work focuses on the optimization of a last-mile delivery system with multiple transportation modes. In this scenario, parcels need to be delivered to each customer point. The major feature of the problem is the combination of a fleet of road vehicles (vans) with a drone. Each van visits a subset of demand nodes to be determined according to the route of the van. The drone serves the customers not served by vans. At the same time, considering the safety, policy and terrain as well as the need to replace the battery, the drone needs to be transported by truck to the identified station along with the parcel. From each such station, the drone serves a subset of customers according to a direct assignment pattern, i.e., every time the drone is launched, it serves one demand node and returns to the station to collect another parcel. Similarly, the truck is used to transport the drone and cargo between stations. This is somewhat different from the research of other scholars. In terms of the joint distribution of the drone and road vehicle, most scholars will choose the combination of two transportation tools, while we use three. The drone and vans are responsible for distribution services, and the trucks are responsible for transporting the goods and drone to the station. The goal is to optimize the total delivery cost which includes the transportation costs for the vans and the delivery cost for the drone. A fixed cost is also considered for each drone parking site corresponding to the cost of positioning the drone and using the drone station. A discrete optimization model is presented for the problem in addition to a two-phase heuristic algorithm. The results of a series of computational tests performed to assess the applicability of the model and the efficiency of the heuristic are reported. The results obtained show that nearly 10% of the cost can be saved by combining the traditional delivery mode with the use of a drone and drone stations.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Last mile (transportation)", "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Mile", "Computer science", "Data striping", "Engineering", "Operations research", "Automotive engineering", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 29, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/10/20/2510/pdf?version=1634693226" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3011207696", "doi": "10.1155/2020/6039032", "title": "A Multimodal Passenger-and-Package Sharing Network for Urban Logistics", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-03-20", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Yuxiong Ji", "Yujing Zheng", "Jizhou Zhao", "Yu Shen", "Yuchuan Du" ], "first_author": "Yuxiong Ji", "venue": "Journal of Advanced Transportation", "publisher": "Hindawi Publishing Corporation", "abstract": "This paper envisions a multimodal passenger-and-package sharing (PPS) network for urban logistics integrating metro, taxi, and truck. A hub-and-spoke structure is designed including hubs located at metro stations and service stores connected to the hubs. Packages are transported by metro on backbone links between the hubs and are carried by taxis or trucks between service stores and hubs, depending on the unit costs of these two modes and capacity constraint of the taxi. A mixed integer linear programming model for hub location problems—fusing the multiassignment p-hub median problem without capacity constraints and the capacitated multiassignment p-hub covering problem—is formulated to optimize the multimodal PPS network. The model is implemented based on the real-world data in Shanghai (China) under a series of scenarios to evaluate the network performance from two perspectives: the number of hubs and the proportion of taxi drivers who are willing to carry packages. The scenarios show that with increased number of hubs, the spatial distribution of hubs disperses from the city center to peripheral areas and more areas can be serviced by taxis. There is, however, a trade-off between the operation cost saved by taxis and the establishment cost of an extra hub. The analysis also presents that if the proportion of taxis willing to carry packages associates with the incentive payments to taxi drivers, an optimal value of incentives exists, by balancing the operation costs of taxis and trucks.", "keywords": [ "Taxis", "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Service (business)", "Constraint (computer-aided design)", "Computer science", "Incentive", "Payment", "Operations research", "Business", "Engineering", "Automotive engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 33, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/jat/2020/6039032.pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2994383333", "doi": "10.3390/su11247010", "title": "Factors Affecting the Choice of Urban Freight Vehicles: Issues Related to Brazilian Companies", "year": 2019, "publication_date": "2019-12-08", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Leise Kelli de Oliveira", "Bruno Vieira Bertoncini", "Carla de Oliveira Leite Nascimento", "Lara Braide Rocha", "Larissa Almeida Matias de Lima Batista", "Leonardo Ventorim Cellin" ], "first_author": "Leise Kelli de Oliveira", "venue": "Sustainability", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "In this paper, we present the attributes that influence the choice of an urban freight vehicle by using a systematic literature review and a survey conducted with logistics operators that perform urban deliveries in some of the biggest cities in Brazil. The results obtained facilitate the analysis and determination of the main attributes of vehicle selection in some cities of Brazil. Descriptive statistics are used to describe the characteristics of the companies, and a principal component analysis identifies the dependent variables, in order to evaluate the importance of each attribute. Also, an ordered logistic regression model is used to identify if the characteristics of the companies influence the choice of an urban freight vehicle. The results of this analysis indirectly indicate the dependence of the decision-making process on the logistics policies implemented in a given city. These attributes agree with those in the literature review. These results, despite of being evident, are different from the present selection criteria, which depend on local city policies.", "keywords": [ "Descriptive statistics", "Selection (genetic algorithm)", "Order (exchange)", "Logistic regression", "Business", "City logistics", "Process (computing)", "Principal component analysis", "Transport engineering", "Marketing", "Computer science", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 9, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/24/7010/pdf?version=1576643445" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3162939322", "doi": "10.3390/su13105357", "title": "The Growth of E-Commerce Due to COVID-19 and the Need for Urban Logistics Centers Using Electric Vehicles: Bratislava Case Study", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-05-11", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Tomáš Settey", "Jozef Gnap", "Dominika Beňová", "Michal Pavličko", "Oľga Blažeková" ], "first_author": "Tomáš Settey", "venue": "Sustainability", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "Before the COVID-19 pandemic there had already been an increase in individual shipment transportation including inner-city areas. During the pandemic and implementation of adopted preventive measures, it has increased by more than 100% in some cities. This presents an unsustainable development, particularly in terms of urban environment. The above-mentioned development has accelerated the research related to optimal allocation of logistics centres considering the last-mile distribution. Unfortunately, the theoretical mathematical model that finds an optimal urban logistics centre location based on the matrix of distance, number, and weight of shipments is not applicable in most cities. Therefore, the following research methodology was chosen in accordance with the approved territorial plan. The authors considered those locations in Bratislava—the capital of Slovak Republic—which are designated, or suitable for building up of an urban logistics centre. These localities were afterwards evaluated in a real-world case study employing methods of mathematical programming (linear programming), the nearest neighbour method, and the Clarke-Wright method. The presented methodology can be applied not only when deciding on the appropriate location of the city logistics centre, but also at optimizing the vehicle routing problem. Taking into account the urban logistics sustainability and the e-commerce growth, it was analysed whether the suggested location of urban logistics centre is feasible to provision examined facilities using electric vehicles. The range of considered electric vehicles of N2 category present in the market tends to be at the limits of distribution routes length for the given case study. Therefore, the article also deals with the fast-charging possibilities of vehicles during handling operations and the use of hybrid freight vehicles in city logistics.", "keywords": [ "City logistics", "Transport engineering", "Sustainability", "Plan (archaeology)", "Business", "Facility location problem", "Distribution (mathematics)", "Computer science", "Last mile (transportation)", "Operations research", "Geography", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 66, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/10/5357/pdf?version=1620732230" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4386281110", "doi": "10.1007/978-3-031-42536-3_30", "title": "An Approach of Optimisation in Last Mile Delivery", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-01-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Dragan Simić", "JOSE LUIS CALVO ROLLE", "Jose Ramon Villar", "Vladimir Ilin", "Svetislav D. Simić", "Svetlana Simić" ], "first_author": "Dragan Simić", "venue": "Lecture notes in networks and systems", "publisher": "Springer International Publishing", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "Mile", "Last mile (transportation)", "Drone", "Vehicle routing problem", "Transport engineering", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Computer science", "Product (mathematics)", "Environmental economics", "Business", "Operations research" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42536-3_30" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W621988997", "doi": null, "title": "Urban Distribution Centers – A Means to Reducing Freight Vehicle Miles Traveled", "year": 2011, "publication_date": "2011-02-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Marta A. Panero", "Hyeon-Shic Shin", "Daniel Polo Lopez" ], "first_author": "Marta A. Panero", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "The present study examines the model of freight consolidation platforms, and urban distribution centers (UDCs) in particular, as a means to solve the last mile problem of urban freight while reducing vehicle miles traveled and associated environmental impacts. This paper attempts to identify the key characteristics that make UDCs successful and discuss under what contextual settings (e.g., institutional, policy) they work best. After an extensive review of UDC cases already implemented in other countries, the study examined three UDCs cases with potential applicability to the New York metropolitan region, discussing models and relevant features and elements that may be transferred to the New York context.", "keywords": [ "Metropolitan area", "Transport engineering", "Work (physics)", "Consolidation (business)", "Context (archaeology)", "Distribution (mathematics)", "City logistics", "Vehicle miles of travel", "Regional science", "Environmental planning", "Geography", "Operations research" ], "cited_by_count": 34, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/20354" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W7152242972", "doi": "10.1371/journal.pone.0344897", "title": "Rural first-mile pickup and last-mile delivery: A bus-assisted heterogeneous-drone model", "year": 2026, "publication_date": "2026-04-08", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Song Jin", "Lu Wang", "Yunpeng Gong", "Jingyu Hu" ], "first_author": "Song Jin", "venue": "PLoS ONE", "publisher": "Public Library of Science", "abstract": "With the rapid expansion of rural e-commerce, widely dispersed demand and limited road infrastructure have made conventional truck-based first-mile pickup and last-mile delivery increasingly unsustainable, creating an urgent need for alternative logistics models. We introduce a bus-assisted heterogeneous-drone scheme that treats fixed-route rural buses as mobile hubs while dispatching drones with complementary ranges and payloads for door-to-door service. A mixed-integer programming model captures bus schedules, drone heterogeneity, time-window constraints, and battery limits. To solve this model efficiently, we develop a two-stage framework-bus-stop clustering followed by an Improved Black-Kite Algorithm (IBKA). IBKA incorporates four enhancements: opposition-based learning, adaptive attack probability, random boundary shrinkage, and a Differential Evolution hybrid operator. Numerical experiments on adapted Solomon instances show the proposed method outperforms Gurobi, a standard Genetic Algorithm (GA), an Eel and Grouper Optimizer (EGO), and the original Black-Kite Algorithm (BKA) in terms of cost, stability, and convergence. On average, IBKA reduces total delivery cost by 5% relative to GA, 9% relative to EGO, and 13% relative to BKA, and enhances stability by 23%, 55%, and 23%, respectively. Sensitivity tests highlight the pivotal influence of drone payload and bus headway. A real-world study on the Xunyang-Tongqianguan line in Shaanxi Province further demonstrates substantial cost savings and operational advantages over both truck-only and homogeneous-drone delivery modes, underscoring the practical value of bus-drone collaboration for rural logistics.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Pickup", "Cluster analysis", "Payload (computing)", "Sensitivity (control systems)", "Scheme (mathematics)", "Boundary (topology)", "Genetic algorithm", "Transit (satellite)", "Toll" ], "cited_by_count": 3, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0344897" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4402685933", "doi": "10.2514/6.2024-3646", "title": "Balancing Trade-Offs: The Energy Efficiency of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in Last-Mile Delivery and Operational Policy Restrictions", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-07-27", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Carrie He", "Parth Singh", "Sofiya P’yavka", "Leah Wolfe", "Kevin Caldwell", "Tasfia Mehbuba Islam", "Chris Tang", "Aws F. Mustafa" ], "first_author": "Carrie He", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "Compared to the conventional transportation method of diesel cargo trucks, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) can potentially transform the logistics sector in the coming decade through their integration into last-mile delivery systems. Prior studies have demonstrated that UAS, given their versatility, can improve the overall energy efficiency of the system when used in conjunction with conventional delivery methods, thus offering a more environmentally sustainable approach to last-mile delivery. However, numerous challenges must be addressed for this integration to be feasible, with UAS regulations being a large limiting factor. UAS regulations are continuously evolving and oversee critical issues such as safety and privacy, but they impose many restrictions on UAS usage. This study aims to investigate this problem by examining the impacts of regulations on a heterogeneous UAS-integrated last-mile delivery. Specifically, we focus on a sustainability perspective and evaluate the effects of operational regulations on the energy efficiency of the delivery system. We develop an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) system to simulate the truck-drone Heterogeneous Delivery Problem (HDP) with dynamic switch points. Results show that under current FAA regulations, a truck-drone hybrid delivery system saves approximately 1.60 US gallons of gasoline compared to a truck-only system. However, the energy consumption is competitive. Furthermore, we perform a sensitivity analysis to examine the effects of various flight parameters and no-fly zones on the energy consumption of the delivery operation. We find additional no-fly zones and the requirement to operate within the Visual Line-of-Sight (VLOS) of the operator to impact the allocation of the delivery system. This study serves as a reference point to guide the direction of future UAS policy-making and technological development, advocating for more sustainable forms of last-mile delivery and contributing to the realization of UAS technology.", "keywords": [ "Last mile (transportation)", "Mile", "Efficient energy use", "Computer science", "Aeronautics", "Business", "Transport engineering", "Engineering", "Electrical engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 4, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2024-3646" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3170627891", "doi": "10.7307/ptt.v33i3.3721", "title": "The Application of Drones in City Logistics Concepts", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-06-02", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Snežana Radoman Tadić", "Milovan Kovač", "Olja Čokorilo" ], "first_author": "Snežana Radoman Tadić", "venue": "PROMET - Traffic&Transportation", "publisher": "University of Zagreb, Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences", "abstract": "With the rise of city logistics (CL) problems in the last three decades, various methods, approaches, solutions, and initiatives were analyzed and proposed for making logistics in urban areas more sustainable. The most analyzed and promising solutions are those that take into account cooperation among logistics providers and consolidation of the flow of goods. Furthermore, technological innovations enable the implementation of modern vehicles/equipment in order to make CL solutions sustainable. For several years, drone-based delivery has attracted lots of attention in scientific research, but there is a serious gap in the literature regarding the application of drones in CL concepts. The goal of this paper is to analyze four CL concepts that differ in consolidation type, transformation degree of flow of goods (direct and indirect, multi-echelon flows), and the role of drones. Two of the analyzed concepts are novel, which is the main contribution of the paper. The performances of the analyzed concepts are compared to the performances of the traditional delivery model – using only trucks without prior flow consolidation. The results indicate that CL concepts which combine different consolidation models and drones in the last phase of the delivery could stand out as a sustainable CL solution.", "keywords": [ "Consolidation (business)", "Drone", "City logistics", "Truck", "Computer science", "Business", "Process management", "Operations research", "Transport engineering", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 28, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://traffic.fpz.hr/index.php/PROMTT/article/download/3721/561561925" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4321597058", "doi": "10.3390/ijgi12030088", "title": "Using Large-Scale Truck Trajectory Data to Explore the Location of Sustainable Urban Logistics Centres—The Case of Wuhan", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-02-22", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Hongzan Jiao", "Faxing Yang", "Shasha Xu", "Shibiao Huang" ], "first_author": "Hongzan Jiao", "venue": "ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "Urban logistics is important to a city’s sustainable growth and development. With the increase in population and the economic growth in urban areas, the issue of congestion and the negative influence of transport of goods on people and the environment is one of the most important factors in the development of urban logistics. By determining the optimal location of urban logistics centres, total transport costs of logistics, the flow of goods in urban areas and the greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced. However, the traditional methods are easily influenced by the ambiguity of objective data, which makes it difficult to accurately describe the logistics demand in the urban area. To address this issue, the improved location–allocation model for urban logistics centres based on truck trajectory data is proposed. After extracting the origin–destination points, the logistics service demand can be estimated by the DBSCAN (density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise) clustering method. Then, the location–allocation of logistics centres is determined by an improved P-median method with the supply capacity limitation for simultaneous delivery of goods in the logistics centres. To validate the model, taking Wuhan, a central logistics city in China, as an example, the model can effectively ensure the equitable distribution of logistics facilities, minimize freight expenses, achieve more uniformity in logistics center services, and foster sustainable development of the city’s logistics sector.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "DBSCAN", "Business", "Transport engineering", "Logistics center", "City logistics", "Service (business)", "Population", "Traffic management", "Scale (ratio)", "Sustainable development", "Cluster analysis" ], "cited_by_count": 12, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/12/3/88/pdf?version=1677475197" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2034407146", "doi": "10.3141/2410-10", "title": "City Logistics", "year": 2014, "publication_date": "2014-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Lan Jiang", "Hani S. Mahmassani" ], "first_author": "Lan Jiang", "venue": "Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board", "publisher": "SAGE Publishing", "abstract": "This paper addresses freight management in large, congested urban settings. Congestion creates a substantial variation in travel time (speeds) during morning peak and evening peak periods. Besides the day-to-day dynamics of traffic conditions, traffic incidents contribute significantly to urban congestion, resulting in unplanned travel delays. Urban route designs that ignore such significant variations are often found to be inefficient or even infeasible (in regard to delivery or pickup time windows) in a congested traffic environment. This limitation may lead to delays, higher operational costs, and inferior customer service. To take the dynamics of traffic conditions into account, the proposed modeling framework includes an underlying dynamic network traffic simulation-assignment model that is able to compute time-dependent shortest paths (TDSPs) and simulate individual vehicles on a realistic representation of urban road network elements, including signalization, ramp metering, and other operational controls. A two-phase set-partitioning–based heuristic approach is proposed to construct freight vehicle routes. No parameter tuning is required. The integrated modeling framework was first tested on a small network, and then the application was demonstrated on a real-world urban network, the Chicago, Illinois, area network, with problem instances of up to 500 customers with TDSPs updated at 10-min intervals.", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Traffic congestion", "Computer science", "Heuristic", "Level of service", "Urban network", "Set (abstract data type)", "Metering mode", "Service (business)", "Operations research", "Simulation", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 19, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.3141/2410-10" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4411104339", "doi": "10.1155/atr/3995437", "title": "The Delivery Time Performance Study of a Novel Collaborative Delivery System Integrating Drones and Ground Public Transit for Urban Last‐Mile Delivery", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Shaozhi Hong", "Jiayu Zang", "Zeling Wang" ], "first_author": "Shaozhi Hong", "venue": "Journal of Advanced Transportation", "publisher": "Hindawi Publishing Corporation", "abstract": "With the rapid expansion of e‐commerce, effectively managing last‐mile delivery while satisfying consumer demands for timeliness and convenience has become increasingly imperative. Traditional delivery systems, which predominantly depend on human labor and freight vehicles, encounter significant challenges, including traffic congestion, escalating labor expenses, and environmental degradation. The advancements in drone technology present a promising solution for the logistics domain. This study proposes a novel collaborative delivery system that integrates drones with ground public transit, and aims to assess the delivery time performance of this system. Within this system, drones are responsible for direct parcel delivery to customers, while ground public transportation vehicles handle the transportation of drones and parcels between designated stops. The study develops a delivery strategy and establishes an operational framework to attain the delivery time for each customer. Subsequently, this study assesses the delivery time performance of this delivery system by introducing relevant metrics. Numerical experiments conducted across three distinct scenarios validate the proposed methodology, demonstrating the system’s potential in urban last‐mile delivery. The findings indicate that the collaborative delivery system exhibits good performance, especially in multi‐parcel delivery mode compared to single‐parcel delivery mode. Moreover, sensitivity analyses are performed to explore the effects of departure intervals and dwell time and obtain valuable insights on system operations.", "keywords": [ "Mile", "Drone", "Last mile (transportation)", "Public transport", "Transit (satellite)", "Delivery system", "Transport engineering", "Ground transportation", "Transit system", "Food delivery", "Engineering", "Computer science" ], "cited_by_count": 5, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1155/atr/3995437" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2104873320", "doi": null, "title": "Multi-echelon distribution systems in city logistics", "year": 2013, "publication_date": "2013-08-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Simona Mancini" ], "first_author": "Simona Mancini", "venue": "OpenstarTs (Univeristy of Trieste https://www.units.it/)", "publisher": "University of Trieste", "abstract": "In the last decades \\n, \\nthe increasing quality of services requested by the cust \\nomer, yields to the necessity of \\noptimizing \\nthe whole distribution process. \\nThis goal may be achieved through a smart exploitation of \\nexisting resources other than a clever planning of the whole distribution process. For doing that, it is \\nnecessary to enha \\nnce goods consolidation. \\nOne of the most efficient way to implement \\nit \\nis to adopt \\nMulti \\n- \\nEchelon distribution systems \\nwhich are very common in \\nCity Logistic context, \\nin which they allow \\nto keep large trucks from the city center, with strong \\nenvironmental \\na \\ndvantages \\n. \\nThe aim of the \\npaper \\nis to \\nreview \\nrouting \\nproblems \\narising \\nin City Logistics \\n, in which multi \\n- \\ne \\nchelon distribution systems are \\ninvolved: the \\nTwo Echelon \\nLocation Routing Problem ( \\n2E \\n- \\nLRP) \\n, the Two \\nEchelon Vehicle Routing \\nProblem (2E \\n- \\nVRP) and Truck and Trailer Routing Problem (TTRP), and to discuss literature on \\noptimization methods, both exact and heuristic, developed to address these problems.", "keywords": [ "Vehicle routing problem", "Truck", "City logistics", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Computer science", "Operations research", "Context (archaeology)", "Distribution center", "Process (computing)", "Transport engineering", "Business", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 27, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "http://hdl.handle.net/10077/8868" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4399739177", "doi": "10.1007/978-3-031-62922-8_3", "title": "Optimization of a Last Mile Delivery Model with a Truck and a Drone Using Mathematical Formulation and a VNS Algorithm", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-01-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Batool Madani", "Malick Ndiaye", "Saı̈d Salhi" ], "first_author": "Batool Madani", "venue": "Lecture notes in computer science", "publisher": "Springer Science+Business Media", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Drone", "Computer science", "Truck", "Mile", "Last mile (transportation)", "Algorithm", "Simulation", "Aerospace engineering", "Engineering", "Geography", "Geodesy" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-62922-8_3" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2245682929", "doi": "10.1016/j.trc.2017.11.015", "title": "On the min-cost Traveling Salesman Problem with Drone", "year": 2017, "publication_date": "2017-12-22", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Quang Minh Ha", "Yves Deville", "Quang Dung Pham", "Minh Hoàng Hà" ], "first_author": "Quang Minh Ha", "venue": "Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Travelling salesman problem", "Drone", "Computer science", "Traveling purchaser problem", "2-opt", "Mathematical optimization", "Mathematics", "Biology", "Algorithm" ], "cited_by_count": 628, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.08764" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2800101074", "doi": "10.1080/00207543.2018.1461269", "title": "The location and sizing of urban freight loading/unloading lay-by areas", "year": 2018, "publication_date": "2018-04-17", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Roberto Pinto", "Alexandra Lagorio", "Ruggero Golini" ], "first_author": "Roberto Pinto", "venue": "International Journal of Production Research", "publisher": "Taylor & Francis", "abstract": "The volume of freight vehicles operating within city boundaries is steadily increasing, which contributes to road congestion, especially in urban areas with a parking deficit. The proper identification of the location and size of commercial parking lay-by areas, where delivery vehicles can park for a limited time to perform loading/unloading operations, can relieve road congestion. Compared to the existing literature, this paper presents an improved two-stage approach, which includes a mathematical programme and a simulation model for determining the location and sizing of lay-by areas. The robustness and soundness of the results from a methodological and practical point of view are discussed using an example application.", "keywords": [ "Sizing", "Robustness (evolution)", "Transport engineering", "Soundness", "Computer science", "Traffic congestion", "City logistics", "Identification (biology)", "Operations research", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 29, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "http://hdl.handle.net/10446/131521" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2550789020", "doi": "10.1016/j.trpro.2016.11.041", "title": "Potential for ITS/ICT Solutions in Urban Freight Management", "year": 2016, "publication_date": "2016-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Jacek Oskarbski", "Daniel Kaszubowski" ], "first_author": "Jacek Oskarbski", "venue": "Transportation research procedia", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "The article presents a study on applying ITS solutions in planning and management of urban freight transport in Gdynia. The traffic management system Tristar which is under implementation and its related systems show a potential to assist in development of freight transport measures. Recommendations for urban freight policy development supplementing Gdynia's Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan were used as a basis for identification where ITS/ITC could be implemented. The first stage may involve modelling and analysis of freight vehicle traffic with new multilevel transport model for Gdynia. Other possible measures include, among others provision of dynamic information for vehicle routing and priorities for trucks on selected sections of road network. However, problems with access to reliable data describing delivery vehicle traffic were identified in this early stage as no practical rules for their collection had been developed. Additional problems appear in acquiring urban supply chain characteristics that require collaboration with the private sector. Such studies have not as yet been conducted in Poland. The identified factors indicate the need to precisely specify expected results and the areas of ITS application in Gdynia to prepare for their. Dynamic routing and scheduling with real time information appeared to be the most promising solution applying ITS, with temporary priorities for HGV providing services to the sea port in Gdynia in peak traffic and directing lorries implementation to free parking slots. Experience gained in these applications will be useful in developing other, complex solutions, e.g. in organising distribution in the city centre.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Traffic management", "City logistics", "Vehicle routing problem", "Port (circuit theory)", "Plan (archaeology)", "Identification (biology)", "Scheduling (production processes)", "Computer science", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Information and Communications Technology" ], "cited_by_count": 19, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235214651630655X/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3157633633", "doi": "10.7922/g29z9363", "title": "The Sustainability of Alternative Last-Mile Delivery Strategies", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-01-01", "type": "preprint", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Miguel Jaller" ], "first_author": "Miguel Jaller", "venue": "RePEc: Research Papers in Economics", "publisher": "Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis", "abstract": "In the last decade, e-commerce has grown substantially and transformed individual shopping behaviors. Most shopping activities—at least part of the search, if not the purchase itself—now involve an online component. This has consequently changed commodity flow and urban goods distribution. E-commerce has the potential to reduce the negative impacts of shopping on the environment by substituting individual shopping trips to stores using personal cars with optimized truck deliveries. However, shopping behavior is often more complex than this one-to-one substitution.Additionally, e-retailers entice consumers with free shipping, free returns, same-day, one-hour or two-hour expedited deliveries, and more in a quest for increased market share. These enhanced services result in additional distances driven, emissions, and operational costs for the e-retailer. The increasing customer expectations around lead time, delivery time, and return policy present a need for more sustainable delivery options, particularly for the “last mile” between the distribution center and the customer. Last-mile operators are considering alternatives to traditional diesel truck-based, door-to-door delivery such as use of alternative fuel (e.g., electric) vehicles, delivery from micro-hubs using cargo bikes, customer pickup at collection points, and crowdsourced deliveries. Researchers at the University of California, Davis developed models for e-commerce demand, last-mile delivery operations, and cost and sustainability assessment, then applied this modeling framework to a case study in Southern California to evaluate the potential impact of these strategies under different delivery scenarios. This policy brief summarizes findings from that research, along with policy implications.View the NCST Project Webpage", "keywords": [ "Last mile (transportation)", "Truck", "Sustainability", "Business", "TRIPS architecture", "Mile", "Food delivery", "Commodity", "Environmental economics", "Marketing", "Transport engineering", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.7922/g29z9363" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3115392818", "doi": "10.1016/j.tre.2020.102134", "title": "A theoretical framework to evaluate the traffic impact of urban freight consolidation centres", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-12-19", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Rakhi Manohar Mepparambath", "Lynette W. Cheah", "Costas Courcoubetis" ], "first_author": "Rakhi Manohar Mepparambath", "venue": "Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "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.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "TRIPS architecture", "Business", "Traffic management", "City logistics", "Transport engineering", "Consolidation (business)", "Externality", "Traffic congestion", "Engineering", "Finance", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 24, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136655452030781X/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3112911931", "doi": "10.1016/b978-0-12-819822-3.00021-3", "title": "City logistics and the urban environment", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-12-16", "type": "book-chapter", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Michael G.H. Bell" ], "first_author": "Michael G.H. Bell", "venue": "Elsevier eBooks", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "City logistics", "Last mile (transportation)", "Transport engineering", "Business", "Sustainable transport", "Consolidation (business)", "Engineering", "Sustainability", "Mile", "Geography", "Finance" ], "cited_by_count": 15, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-819822-3.00021-3" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W7146947504", "doi": "10.1109/tits.2026.3677411", "title": "Reinforcement Learning and Exact Optimization for Traffic-Weighted Hybrid Truck-Drone Last-Mile Delivery With Deadlines", "year": 2026, "publication_date": "2026-03-31", "type": "article", "language": null, "authors": [ "Abdullahi Sani Shuaibu", "Ashraf Sharif Mahmoud", "Tarek Sheltami", "Anis Elgabli" ], "first_author": "Abdullahi Sani Shuaibu", "venue": "IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems", "publisher": "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers", "abstract": "We propose a Reinforcement Learning (RL) framework for hybrid truck-drone Last-Mile Delivery (LMD), where drones launch from a truck and either rendezvous with it or return to the depot after serving customers, subject to vehicle range limits and customer-defined deadlines. Deliveries completed after the latest allowable service time are treated as deadline violations (lateness) and are penalized in the objective. To provide an exact reference, a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model is formulated. It serves both as a benchmark for evaluating the RL approach and as a practical method when the delivery set is small or when minimizing lateness is the primary objective, since the exact MILP solution is guaranteed to be optimal but become computationally expensive to solve as problem size grows due to the combinatorial increase in routing and coordination possibilities. The RL method is introduced as a scalable alternative for larger hybrid truck-drone deployments because it maintains practical computation times through iterative learning and avoids the exponential growth in solving effort associated with exact optimization. The RL framework employs an$\\epsilon $-greedy policy with decay and a reward structure that mirrors the MILP objective. Traffic congestion is incorporated through a scaling matrix that adjusts truck travel times on road segments, while drones remain unaffected due to aerial operation. RL is further benchmarked against Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimiztion (PSO), which are also formulated to align with the same MILP objective to ensure a consistent basis for comparison. Results show that the RL component scales more efficiently with increasing delivery size while maintaining competitive solution quality.", "keywords": [ "Reinforcement learning", "Benchmark (surveying)", "Scalability", "Integer programming", "Range (aeronautics)", "Linear programming", "Set (abstract data type)", "Particle swarm optimization", "Routing (electronic design automation)" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1109/tits.2026.3677411" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2923164074", "doi": "10.5281/zenodo.1446086", "title": "Electric freight vehicles for urban logistics – technical performance, economics feasibility and environmental impacts", "year": 2018, "publication_date": "2018-04-16", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Yanjie Dong", "John Polak", "Terje Kristian Tretvik", "Isabelle Roche‐Cerasi", "Hans J. Quak", "Nina Nikolaevna Nesterova", "T. van Rooijen" ], "first_author": "Yanjie Dong", "venue": "NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives", "publisher": null, "abstract": "This paper summarises the lessons learned from using electric freight vehicles (EFVs) for urban freight transport in three dimensions. First we look at the technical and operational suitability of using EFVs, including energy efficiency, range and its seasonal variations, and charging and local grid capacity issues. Then we examine all the elements which affect the business case from a carrier’s perspective, including changes of business model by the size of the vehicle, changes in value network and the elements required to enable a transition towards a wider-scale electrification. Finally, we present the environmental impacts from running EFVs at three levels, including direct impact analysis from the project demonstration activities, impact analysis at a wider uptake level by using traffic models and impact monetisation. Data used for this analysis is collected under the European FP7 project FREVUE, where around 80 electric-powered vehicles were deployed in the cities of Amsterdam, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Milan, Oslo, Rotterdam, and Stockholm.", "keywords": [ "City logistics", "Transport engineering", "Business", "Traffic management", "Environmental economics", "Environmental science", "Engineering", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 8, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2582839" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4387460276", "doi": "10.4324/9781003365877-5", "title": "Autonomous lorries, artificial intelligence and urban (freight) mobilities", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-10-09", "type": "book-chapter", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Debbie Hopkins" ], "first_author": "Debbie Hopkins", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "Lorries do a variety of work in cities. They keep cities (economically and socially) moving, while also contributing to urban congestion and pollution, traffic injuries and fatalities. Their logistical mobilities are both relational and contingent. As a result, there is an uneasy relationship between lorries – and their (human) drivers – and cities. Artificial intelligence, by way of the automation of the transport system, is one proposed ‘solution’ to the ‘problem’ of freight haulage as currently imagined. This chapter considers the emergence of autonomous lorries as a process of making the ‘safe’ lorry by eliminating, or reducing the role of, the ‘unsafe’ driver.", "keywords": [ "Mobilities", "Truck", "Engineering", "Transport engineering", "Sociology", "Automotive engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 2, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003365877-5" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W7160284882", "doi": "10.1007/s10479-026-07243-5", "title": "A Bayesian trust-based hybrid truck-drone coalition framework for resilient and sustainable last-mile delivery", "year": 2026, "publication_date": "2026-05-05", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Armin Mahmoodi", "Seyed Mojtaba Sajadi", "Said M. Easa" ], "first_author": "Armin Mahmoodi", "venue": "Annals of Operations Research", "publisher": "Springer Science+Business Media", "abstract": "Abstract This study proposes a novel hybrid Truck-Drone-Coalition (TDC) framework to enhance the resilience and sustainability of last-mile urban delivery systems. The model optimizes four conflicting objectives simultaneously: total delivery cost, service time, operational risk, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, also called drones) energy consumption. To address behavioral uncertainty among coalition partners, we integrate a Bayesian trust update mechanism with a Markov transition process, enabling dynamic adjustment of cooperation levels and automatic activation of fallback outsourcing when trust thresholds are breached. The solution combines an exact Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) core with a Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) metaheuristic to ensure feasible routing, coalition stability, and robust Pareto-optimal trade-offs. Validated using real-world urban scenarios (Solomon benchmarks and commercial UAV specifications), the framework demonstrates: (a) 18% fewer delivery disruptions compared to static trust models, (b) 94% on-time delivery rate under high uncertainty (an 11% improvement over the base case), and (c) 9% lower costs and 12% higher energy efficiency through adaptive coalition reconfiguration. Simulation results demonstrate that the Bayesian trust mechanism effectively detects misbehavior, reallocates tasks via third-party outsourcing, and sustains service reliability under coalition instability or UAV breakdowns. Additionally, dynamic Shapley cost-sharing ensures fair cost allocation among coalition members. By integrating trust modeling, cooperative game theory, and risk-aware controls, this research bridges a critical gap in hybrid truck-drone logistics. The findings provide actionable insights for logistics managers seeking cost-effective, flexible, and resilient last-mile solutions. Future work will focus on real-time trust evaluation and dynamic coalition reconfiguration using live operational data.", "keywords": [ "Control reconfiguration", "Resilience (materials science)", "Sorting", "Cooperative game theory", "Service (business)", "Reliability (semiconductor)", "Markov decision process", "Pooling", "Service provider", "Game theory" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-026-07243-5" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W141784123", "doi": null, "title": "Differentiated Regulation of Urban Freight Traffic: Conceptual Framework and Examples from Italy", "year": 2008, "publication_date": "2008-01-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Edoardo Marcucci", "Antonio Comi", "Site Delle", "F. Filippi", "Agostino Nuzzolo" ], "first_author": "Edoardo Marcucci", "venue": "Cineca Institutional Research Information System (Tor Vergata University)", "publisher": "University of Rome Tor Vergata", "abstract": "The need for regulating the traffic of freight vehicles in inner city areas arises from a number of problems. The two-way interaction between freight and other traffic is a source of congestion and inefficiencies for freight operations. Freight vehicles contribute significantly to air pollution due to the dominance of diesel propulsion. Freight traffic may also limit the attractiveness and liveability of city centres. The paper addresses measures aimed at regulating access, parking, loading and unloading of freight vehicles. Measures can be differentiated among vehicles. The role which differentiation might play is the focus of the paper. The potential of differentiation for creating incentives and considering the specific needs of various user categories is highlighted. Incentives relate to the switch to less polluting vehicles, third account operation, smaller vehicles, and higher load factor. The conceptual insight is illustrated by an empirical analysis of the regulation measures existing in the Italian cities of Rome and Milan.", "keywords": [ "Incentive", "Traffic management", "Transport engineering", "Dominance (genetics)", "Business", "Attractiveness", "Traffic congestion", "Conceptual framework", "Engineering", "Economics", "Microeconomics" ], "cited_by_count": 30, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "http://hdl.handle.net/2108/42992" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2018003449", "doi": "10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.1479", "title": "Public Sector Governance to Implement Freight Vehicle Transport Management", "year": 2014, "publication_date": "2014-03-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Eiichi Taniguchi", "Yoshikazu Imanishi", "Rick Barber", "Jonathan James", "Wanda Debauche" ], "first_author": "Eiichi Taniguchi", "venue": "Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "This paper is based on the results of the research carried out by the PIARC Technical Committee B4 (Freight Transport and Inter-Modality, Working Group 3 (Urban freight management) in the 2008 - 2011 research cycle. This paper focuses on the procedure of planning, implementing and evaluating policy measures for urban freight transport. The title of the report indicating “Governance” is challenging in terms of the collaborative work necessary to solve difficult problems encountered by stakeholders. This paper provides the outline of guidance for the governance of urban freight transport in the public sector.", "keywords": [ "Corporate governance", "Work (physics)", "Business", "Traffic management", "Public transport", "Passenger transport", "City logistics", "Transport engineering", "Public sector", "Process management", "Engineering", "Finance" ], "cited_by_count": 23, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814015171/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4403676561", "doi": "10.1109/case59546.2024.10711316", "title": "Deep Reinforcement Learning Enabled Model for Green Last-mile Delivery in MiC Construction", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-08-28", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Wennan Zhang", "Chenglin Yu", "Ying Yu", "Yin Li", "Ray Y. Zhong" ], "first_author": "Wennan Zhang", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "With the rapid focus on a sustainable environment, carbon emission reduction has become a major issue for climate change. Construction sector, as a key industry for carbon emission reduction, mainly consumes carbon through resource delivery. The existing models for green delivery simply integrate the carbon emission factor to evaluate the performance of the forward supply chain. This paper proposes a green last-mile delivery (GLD) model based on the milk-run strategy in MiC construction, which considers the vehicle limitation and empty loaded truck delivery. The objective is to devise a strategy that minimizes the carbon emission of forward and reverse flow of delivery. The implementation of the milk-run strategy aims to collect construction waste and return it to the MiC hub from construction sites using empty trucks. This model is solved by attention-based deep reinforcement learning, utilizing the milk-run strategy. It can more accurately assess the carbon emissions during the last-mile delivery between the construction site and the MiC hub, which guides the construction and logistics companies to select a better distribution strategy under a low-carbon delivery. The results show that our proposed algorithm achieves solutions within 5% of the optimal easily and fast.", "keywords": [ "Mile", "Last mile (transportation)", "Reinforcement learning", "Computer science", "Artificial intelligence", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 2, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1109/case59546.2024.10711316" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4295137353", "doi": "10.1016/j.cie.2022.108645", "title": "An effective and robust genetic algorithm for urban freight transport scheduling using passenger rail network", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-09-09", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Abderrahim Sahli", "Walid Behiri", "Sana Belmokhtar-Berraf", "Chengbin Chu" ], "first_author": "Abderrahim Sahli", "venue": "Computers & Industrial Engineering", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Digraph", "Mathematical optimization", "Genetic algorithm", "Robustness (evolution)", "Scheduling (production processes)", "Computer science", "Truck", "Operations research", "Engineering", "Mathematics" ], "cited_by_count": 41, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2022.108645" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2979676020", "doi": "10.1016/j.trpro.2020.03.194", "title": "Logistics concepts for light electric freight vehicles: a multiple case study from the Netherlands", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "E.A. Moolenburgh", "Ron van Duin", "Susanne Balm", "Martijn Altenburg", "W. Ploos van Amstel" ], "first_author": "E.A. Moolenburgh", "venue": "Transportation research procedia", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "The demand for the transport of goods within the city is rising and with that the number of vans driving around. This has adverse effects on air quality, noise, safety and liveability in the city. LEFVs (Light Electric Freight Vehicles) offer a potential solution for this. There is already a lot of enthusiasm for the LEFVs and several companies have started offering these vehicles. Still many companies are hesitating to start and experiment. New knowledge is needed of logistics concepts for the application of LEFVs. This paper shows the outcomes of eight case studies about what is needed to successfully deploy LEFVs for city logistics.", "keywords": [ "City logistics", "Transport engineering", "Enthusiasm", "Quality (philosophy)", "Business", "Traffic management", "Operations management", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 34, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352146520303951/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2958836259", "doi": "10.1016/j.trpro.2019.06.044", "title": "Creating safer routing for urban freight transportation", "year": 2019, "publication_date": "2019-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Oleksii Prasolenko", "Dmytro Burko", "Illya Tolmachov", "Nizami Gyulyev", "Anrii Galkin", "Oleksii Lobashov" ], "first_author": "Oleksii Prasolenko", "venue": "Transportation research procedia", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "The article examines the impact of traffic conditions on truck drivers. To assess driver’s state the galvanic skin response (GSR) method and the electrocardiogram method (ECG), based on heart rate variability assessment, are used. Obtained results show that the degree of danger in a real driving situation can be estimated through changing driver’s functional state as responding reaction on variations of limits characteristics of driver’s state. GSR response occurs instantly when the driver is exposed to the following factors (events): driving in congested traffic; inhibition of the car moving ahead; change of lane of the leading moving car; lane change and the choice of the movement direction by the driver; car parking along the road; density of traffic flow; pedestrian appearance while driving; maneuvering at crossroads, etc. The cardiac rhythm also shows a change from the above-listed factors which is manifested in a heart rate shift from the initial values before starting the trip by the driver. The proposed method can be used to compile safe traffic routing in urban freight transportation conditions including human factors.", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "SAFER", "Pedestrian", "Truck", "Traffic flow (computer networking)", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Computer science", "Automotive engineering", "Simulation", "Engineering", "Computer security", "Computer network" ], "cited_by_count": 21, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352146519301322/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4399877263", "doi": "10.1007/s10479-024-06127-w", "title": "Collaborative truck–robot deliveries: challenges, models, and methods", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-06-28", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Shaohua Yu", "Jakob Puchinger" ], "first_author": "Shaohua Yu", "venue": "Annals of Operations Research", "publisher": "Springer Science+Business Media", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "Computer science", "Robot", "Engineering", "Artificial intelligence", "Automotive engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 13, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://hal.science/hal-04617850v1/document" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W1977423520", "doi": "10.3141/2269-15", "title": "Evaluation of Distance-Based and Cordon-Based Urban Freight Road Pricing in E-Commerce Environment with Multiagent Model", "year": 2012, "publication_date": "2012-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Joel S.E. Teo", "Eiichi Taniguchi", "Ali Gul Qureshi" ], "first_author": "Joel S.E. Teo", "venue": "Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board", "publisher": "SAGE Publishing", "abstract": "E-commerce is gradually changing the way shoppers acquire goods and services. Shoppers seek ways to purchase goods easily through the Internet, and shippers or producers offer cheap ways to deliver goods to their customers through the services of carriers for home delivery. A theoretical model was established to evaluate city logistics schemes for multiple stakeholders before implementation. Policy measures to manage truck operations in the city and keep pollution levels at a minimum were evaluated. Cordon-based freight road pricing was found to provide better pollution reduction compared with distance-based pricing, but cordon-based pricing had less impact on areas outside a city. The problem was solved with a modeling approach for multiagent systems that used a vehicle routing problem with time windows, freight electronic marketplaces, and Q-learning.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "City logistics", "Transport engineering", "Business", "Road pricing", "The Internet", "Vehicle routing problem", "Traffic management", "Computer science", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Traffic congestion", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 35, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.3141/2269-15" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2974961843", "doi": "10.25439/rmt.27598776", "title": "The future of last-mile delivery: a scenario thinking approach", "year": 2019, "publication_date": "2019-09-11", "type": "dissertation", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Kolawole Ewedairo" ], "first_author": "Kolawole Ewedairo", "venue": "RMIT Research Repository (RMIT University Library)", "publisher": "RMIT University", "abstract": "`Last mile' in cities is not merely a logistics problem, but also a significant urban planning challenge. Last mile is the final leg of the supply chain that involves high-frequency, low-volume, and short-haul distribution of goods to end consumers. This last leg is the most important, yet the least efficient part of supply chain. With rapid growth of online retail transactions and increased supply chain complexity of the globalised production networks, the size, scale and scope of last mile-driven logistics problems are most likely to escalate in the immediate future. Transport infrastructure and planning controls are among the key factors that contribute to the severity of last mile delivery (LMD) problems in large cities. However, interrelationships and interdependencies between last mile logistics and transport networks and urban planning controls are neither theoretically evaluated nor empirically tested in the extant literature. This thesis aims to measure and map the potential transportation network impedance to last mile delivery, build future last mile delivery scenarios and formulate a strategic framework to mitigate the risk of last mile delivery failure within Metropolitan Melbourne. A five-stage Scenario Thinking method was applied to understand and analyse the provision of last mile delivery and the associated `critical uncertainties'. A Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to compute and visualise the potential transportation network impedance to last mile delivery within the Metropolitan Melbourne. Spatial data representing the key constraints of transportation network and planning controls were used to compute the potential transportations network impedance to last mile delivery. A Scenario Thinking (ST) workshop was conducted with 14 participants who represent three major stakeholders, namely operators, administrators and users. This was designed to discuss and identify key planning and transportation constraints contributing to last mile challenges and to formulate future possible and plausible last mile delivery scenarios. Thirty-four major issues that underpin last mile logistics were identified, which were clustered into six thematic dimensions through an iterative consultation process. These include: i) Freight Infrastructure; ii) Infrastructure Supply; iii) Landuse Intensity; iv) Infrastructure Sharing; v) Intersection Controls and vi) Human Behaviour. Infrastructure Supply and Landuse Intensity were found to represent higher uncertainty and higher impact on city logistics provisions. Hence, they were used to build future LMD scenarios. Spatial data of seventeen mappable constraints, including traffic count, population density, zoning, proximity to Melbourne CBD and activity centres, intersection constraint, speed limit, number of lanes, toll, railway boom gate, traffic lights and trams routes, were standardised and aggregated using a composite index technique. The generated LMD impedance index was then mapped using an overlay function to estimate the potential hindrance to last mile delivery as imposed by built and regulatory environment. The mapped outputs illustrate significant spatial variations in LMD impedance levels across different parts of Metropolitan Melbourne. Impedance to last mile reduces with increased distance from the Central Business District, found to be high within the designated activity centres and varies across inner, middle and outer rings. The results reveal that the future outcomes of last-mile delivery is dependent upon which scenario eventuates out of the four scenarios formulated using Infrastructure Supply and Landuse Intensity. The best-best scenario characterises an increase in infrastructure usage, decrease in road congestion, lower delivery cost, and increased last mile delivery productivity and efficiency; whilst the worst-worst scenario represents a decrease in the usage of logistics infrastructure, transport delay and congestion, increased last-mile delivery cost, loss of work productivity, reduced deliveries per day and higher environmental impacts. Further analysis indicates the relative positioning of major stakeholders based on an interest-power matrix. Last mile logistics stakeholders such as Federal, State and Local Governments, and Transurban with high-power tend to exhibit low-interest in provisioning last-mile logistics; while those with high interest such as Drivers and Business owners have low power to influence any positive change to enhance the efficiency of last-mile delivery. Stakeholders with high-power and high-interest were identified to include Public Transport Victoria, VicRoads, Trader Association, Port Authority who could assist in policy-making to help improve last-mile delivery efficiency and curtail carbon footprint within an acceptable level. In this study, a strategic framework is developed to support the formulation of key objectives and future-oriented actions. Five strategies along with key actions were proposed to tackle the LMD challenges associated in Melbourne. These include: land-use zoning, last mile corridor, distribution network strategies, multimodal use strategy and stakeholder engagement strategy. The land use zoning strategy can be implemented to geographically demarcate last-mile delivery zones to improve the efficiency of last-mile delivery to retail businesses within the localised area. The last mile corridor strategy would expedite last-mile delivery along the main arterial networks through the development of linear freight routes to improve last-mile connectivity between key business hubs. This geo-targeted strategy will help reduce the environmental footprint of last-mile delivery, ease traffic bottlenecks and potential conflict between last-mile delivery trucks and commuters by confining truck movements to designated routes. The distribution network strategy would promote consolidation of goods through a holistic integration of people, facilities and transportation infras", "keywords": [ "Last mile (transportation)", "Mile", "Business", "Operations management", "Transport engineering", "Engineering", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.25439/rmt.27598776" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2903797973", "doi": "10.1016/j.cie.2018.12.024", "title": "The two-echelon city logistics system with on-street satellites", "year": 2018, "publication_date": "2018-12-08", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Hongqi Li", "Yinying Liu", "Kaihang Chen", "Qingfeng Lin" ], "first_author": "Hongqi Li", "venue": "Computers & Industrial Engineering", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Transshipment (information security)", "City logistics", "Heuristic", "Truck", "Computer science", "Transport engineering", "Operations research", "Engineering", "Automotive engineering", "Artificial intelligence" ], "cited_by_count": 28, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2018.12.024" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2063988922", "doi": "10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.1455", "title": "Simulating Urban Freight Flows with Combined Shopping and Restocking Demand Models", "year": 2014, "publication_date": "2014-03-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Antonio Comi", "Agostino Nuzzolo" ], "first_author": "Antonio Comi", "venue": "Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "This paper presents the development of a modelling system to simulate urban freight flows and preliminary results of a survey carried out to investigate end-consumer behaviour. The set of models involves the simulation of end-consumer choices in relation to type of retail outlet (e.g. small, medium or large) since such choices undoubtedly impact on freight distribution flows. Indeed, the characteristics of the restocking process are strictly related to the type of retail activities to be restocked in terms of delivery size, delivery frequency, freight vehicle type and so on. The paper details each model for shopping mobility origin-destination matrix estimation and investigates the main variables affecting behaviour in relation to trip generation and type of retail outlet.", "keywords": [ "Relation (database)", "Process (computing)", "Set (abstract data type)", "Business", "Distribution (mathematics)", "Computer science", "Transport engineering", "Mathematics", "Engineering", "Data mining" ], "cited_by_count": 28, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814014931/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W7142667653", "doi": "10.1016/j.tre.2026.104817", "title": "Last-mile delivery with drone resupply at transshipment platforms", "year": 2026, "publication_date": "2026-03-29", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Juan C. Pina-Pardo", "Matthias Winkenbach" ], "first_author": "Juan C. Pina-Pardo", "venue": "Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Transshipment (information security)", "Drone", "Truck", "Exploit", "TRIPS architecture", "Vehicle routing problem" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2026.104817" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2908116282", "doi": "10.3390/su11010234", "title": "A Collaborative Stakeholder Decision-Making Approach for Sustainable Urban Logistics", "year": 2019, "publication_date": "2019-01-04", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Ivana Cavar Semanjski", "Sidharta Gautama" ], "first_author": "Ivana Cavar Semanjski", "venue": "Sustainability", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "Cities strongly rely on efficient urban logistics to ensure their attractiveness, quality of life, and economic development. In the same time, they strive to ensure livable and safe environments around its road network, where the increased presence of light and heavy goods vehicles raises questions of regarding safety and environmental impacts. Recent literature has well-recognized the need to consider different stakeholders’ perspectives on these issues, in order to achieve desired outcomes. In this paper, we introduce a collaborative stakeholders’ decision-making approach for sustainable urban logistics, and demonstrate its applicability on a real-life example. The suggested approach extends existing route planning approaches by considering route sustainability as a part of an arc’s traversal cost. The integration of route sustainability is based on the adoption of a multi-criterial decision-making approach, with the possibility of including different stakeholders’ points of view, and evaluating the sustainability cost concerning the route’s spatial context. To demonstrate the applicability of the suggested approach, we extract the route sustainability cost from the traffic sign database, and implement the findings on a real-life example. Furthermore, the suggested approach exhibits a high level of transferability to various local contexts, where local stakeholders might have a different view on the route sustainability than is the case in our example.", "keywords": [ "Sustainability", "Stakeholder", "Context (archaeology)", "Business", "Order (exchange)", "Computer science", "Environmental economics", "Risk analysis (engineering)", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 30, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/1/234/pdf?version=1546605160" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2061025497", "doi": "10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.613", "title": "CLASS: A City Logistics Analysis and Simulation Support System", "year": 2013, "publication_date": "2013-10-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Antonio Comi", "Luca Rosati" ], "first_author": "Antonio Comi", "venue": "Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "The paper presents a City Logistics Analysis and Simulation support System (CLASS) for the identification of critical stages and the simulation of city logistics scenarios. The analysis of current scenario focuses on logistics and freight transport in relation to land use, freight restocking demand and supply, logistic profile and road network performances and impacts. The simulation is able to point out the relations existing among city logistics measures, decision-maker choice dimensions by using a multi-stage demand model and a discrete choice approach for each decision level. Among the outputs, the freight vehicle flows on the road network links allow to compute the link performances in terms of congestion, pollution and road accidents involving freight vehicles. An application of the support system to the freight restocking for the inner area of Rome is presented.", "keywords": [ "City logistics", "Transport engineering", "Traffic management", "Discrete choice", "Relation (database)", "Class (philosophy)", "Decision support system", "Identification (biology)", "Computer science", "Operations research", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 25, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042813040585/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4390960107", "doi": "10.3390/math12020291", "title": "Research on the Route Choice Behavior of Urban Freight Vehicles Based on GPS Data", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-01-16", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Lili Zheng", "Tian Gao", "Meng Lin", "Tongqiang Ding", "Wenhao Chen" ], "first_author": "Lili Zheng", "venue": "Mathematics", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "In order to provide urban freight vehicles with navigation routes that better align with their travel preferences, it is necessary to analyze the patterns and characteristics of their route choices. This paper focuses on freight vehicles traveling within the city and examines their route selection behavior. Through an analysis of the GPS data collected from freight truck journeys in Changchun, China, this study outlines the characteristics of freight vehicle travel within the city. Variables that may influence their route selection behavior are defined as feature factors. The study employs the DBSCAN algorithm to identify the hotspots in origin–destination pairs for freight truck travel in Changchun. It also utilizes Breadth First Search Link Elimination to generate a set of route choices and constructs route selection behavior models based on Multinomial Logit and Path Size Logit. Based on the research findings, during navigation within the city road network, these vehicles exhibit a preference for side roads, a tendency to favor right turns at intersections, and a propensity to choose routes with lower duplication compared to alternative options. The study’s conclusions offer theoretical support for guiding urban freight vehicle routes and planning and managing freight traffic within the city.", "keywords": [ "Multinomial logistic regression", "Transport engineering", "Truck", "Computer science", "Selection (genetic algorithm)", "Global Positioning System", "Order (exchange)", "Choice set", "Operations research", "Business", "Engineering", "Econometrics" ], "cited_by_count": 5, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/12/2/291/pdf?version=1705401843" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2910374161", "doi": "10.1109/ieem.2018.8607542", "title": "Building Last Mile Delivery Scenarios: A Case Study of Melbourne", "year": 2018, "publication_date": "2018-12-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Kolawole Ewedairo", "Prem Chhetri", "Jago Dodson", "Shams Rahman" ], "first_author": "Kolawole Ewedairo", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "This paper aims to build plausible scenarios to formulate the future of last mile delivery using planning and transport infrastructure attributes as key drivers of last mile bottlenecks. The scenario thinking method is applied to understand and analyse apparent perverse last mile challenges with `critical uncertainties' associated with projection of future patterns. Key stakeholders associated with last mile delivery in an urban setting were identified and their positioning assessed on power and interest. The state and local government with HighPower: LowInterest (HP:LI), and truck associations/drivers LowPower: HighInterest (LP:HI) were identified as key stakeholders with different levels of power and interest. Players such as VicRoads and Traders Associations represent the quadrant of HP:HI who could play a vital role to gain support for more infrastructure investment and technological innovation to help improve the efficiency of city logistics operations. Four plausible urban scenarios were identified using two extracted dimensions: Infrastructure Supply and Intensive Land use. The worst/worst scenario highlighted the area of need for strategic planning to mitigate risk associated with damaged products, congestion, last mile delivery stagnation and ageing infrastructure.", "keywords": [ "Last mile (transportation)", "Mile", "Key (lock)", "Business", "Truck", "Investment (military)", "Government (linguistics)", "Transport engineering", "Computer science", "Operations management", "Computer security", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1109/ieem.2018.8607542" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W7120001054", "doi": "10.1016/j.elerap.2026.101573", "title": "Integrating customer preferences into operational decision-making for prioritizing emerging technologies in last-mile delivery", "year": 2026, "publication_date": "2026-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Ahmet Çalık", "Esra Boz", "Sinan Çizmecioğlu", "Erfan Babaee Tirkolaee" ], "first_author": "Ahmet Çalık", "venue": "Electronic Commerce Research and Applications", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "Robustness (evolution)", "Customer satisfaction", "Service quality", "Drone", "Operational efficiency", "Work (physics)", "Operational costs", "Vehicle routing problem" ], "cited_by_count": 2, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2026.101573" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W641308695", "doi": null, "title": "CITY LOGISTICS IN KASSEL", "year": 1999, "publication_date": "1999-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Uwe Koehler" ], "first_author": "Uwe Koehler", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "A considerable part of urban traffic is caused by in-going and outgoing deliveries to/from retail shops in the Central Business Districts (CBD), to/from larger shopping areas and city markets. So it must become an important goal to improve the coordination of this type of traffic. City logistics concepts are an essential part of the mobility management of urban freight transport especially to improve the saturation of freight vehicles. The basic thought of city logistics is to coordinate and to bundle the deliveries of freight and goods. A test in the German City of Kassel (approximately 200,000 inhabitants) has shown that by coordinating and bundling goods, urban traffic can be reduced although there are many problems that need to be solved. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD E202211.", "keywords": [ "City logistics", "Traffic management", "Transport engineering", "Business", "Central city", "City centre", "Urban area", "Bundle", "Regional science", "Engineering", "Geography", "Economy" ], "cited_by_count": 13, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://trid.trb.org/view/658240" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W852647028", "doi": null, "title": "TRUCK TRIP DATA COLLECTION METHODS", "year": 2004, "publication_date": "2004-02-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Eric Jessup", "Ken Casavant", "Catherine T. Lawson" ], "first_author": "Eric Jessup", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "A considerable body of research exists for addressing the data needs for passenger transportation models and statewide freight truck movements. The number of studies which focus on methods for capturing the necessary data on urban freight movements is less abundant. This study addresses this problem by identifying those freight data attributes necessary for both urban region truck modeling and freight planning efforts and evaluates alternative data collection methodologies for providing these necessary data attributes. Data attributes such as origin-destination detail, route identification, land-use at stops, commodity, weight, vehicle configuration, time of day, volume of shipments and location of trip generators were identified as necessary for modeling and planning needs. Two pilot studies were conducted in the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area, to test truck trip data collection methodologies. One pilot study tested a roadside intercept survey method at three different locations, including an interstate highway weigh station, a Port of Portland marine terminal, and a private freight warehouse/distribution center. The other pilot study tested a combination of mail and fax survey methods used with two different sample types. The survey methods tested included straight mail, phone-mail, phone-mail-phone, straight fax, phone-fax, phone-fax-phone, sent to a Known and Unknown mail population. The results from the different freight data collection methodologies are presented and evaluated.", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Truck", "Phone", "Data collection", "Metropolitan area", "Trip generation", "Identification (biology)", "Population", "Mobile phone", "Sample (material)", "Engineering", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 12, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=697039" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2992630626", "doi": "10.3390/su11246890", "title": "Transport Service Provider Perception of Barriers and Urban Freight Policies in Brazil", "year": 2019, "publication_date": "2019-12-04", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Leise Kelli de Oliveira", "Carla de Oliveira Leite Nascimento", "Paulo Renato de Sousa", "Paulo Tarso Vilela de Resende", "Francisco Gildemir Ferreira da Silva" ], "first_author": "Leise Kelli de Oliveira", "venue": "Sustainability", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "The aim of this paper is to analyze the perceptions of the transport service providers on the barriers in urban freight transport and the restrictions imposed on freight vehicles, identifying which urban freight transport policies can improve this activity in Brazil. Principal component analysis allowed us to identify which are barriers in urban cargo transport and the restrictions imposed on freight vehicles. In addition, we evaluated freight policies that can improve the activity using probabilistic preference. We obtained the database from a web-based survey of transport service providers in Brazil. The results indicate that the urban freight vehicle restriction is related to congestion and availability of loading and unloading areas. The freight vehicle restriction is a result of the lack of information and data. The theft of cargo significantly impacts urban freight transport. Transport service provider company perceptions indicate an urban mobility plan as the most-required freight policy to improve freight mobility. To reduce the barriers to urban freight planning, an understanding of the problem involving the stakeholders is needed. To do so, the challenge is to change the culture in the transportation planning process by integrating various actors to create an urban logistics plan that generates opportunities for the city.", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Traffic management", "Business", "Service provider", "Service (business)", "Plan (archaeology)", "Level of service", "City logistics", "Marketing", "Engineering", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 20, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/24/6890/pdf?version=1575462725" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3202428833", "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2103.04118", "title": "Towards Fully Autonomous Drone-Based Last-Mile Delivery", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-03-06", "type": "preprint", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Navid Mohammad Imran", "Sabyasachee Mishra", "Myounggyu Won" ], "first_author": "Navid Mohammad Imran", "venue": "arXiv (Cornell University)", "publisher": "Cornell University", "abstract": "The drone-based last-mile delivery is an emerging technology to deliver parcels using drones loaded on a truck. As more and more autonomous vehicles (AVs) will be available for delivery services, an opportunity is arising to fully automate drone-based last-mile delivery. In this paper, we integrate AVs with drone-based last-mile delivery aiming to fully automate the last-mile delivery process. We define a new problem called the autonomous vehicle routing problem with drones (A-VRPD). A-VRPD is to select AVs from a pool of available AVs and to schedule them to serve customers with an objective of minimizing the total operational cost. We formulate A-VRPD as an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) and propose a greedy algorithm to solve the problem based on real-world operational costs for different types of AVs, traveling distances calculated considering the current traffic conditions, and varying load capacities of AVs. Extensive simulations performed under various random delivery scenarios demonstrate that the proposed algorithm effectively increases profits for both the delivery company and AV owners compared with traditional VRP-D (and TSP-D) algorithm-based approaches.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Last mile (transportation)", "Mile", "Computer science", "Schedule", "Integer programming", "Vehicle routing problem", "Truck", "Linear programming", "Real-time computing", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Process (computing)" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.04118" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W562615819", "doi": null, "title": "CHARACTERISTICS OF URBAN FREIGHT SYSTEMS", "year": 1995, "publication_date": "1995-12-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "F J Wegmann", "Arun Kumar Chatterjee", "Martin E Lipinski", "B Jennings", "R E McGinnis" ], "first_author": "F J Wegmann", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "This report has been developed to support the transportation planning needs for urban goods movement and freight planning as promoted by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. This report has been designed to be a compilation of current data that pertain to urban freight movements. Sections I-IX deal with urban truck movement and truck terminals while Sections X-XIII are concerned with the intermodal aspects of freight movements: rail, airports and air cargo facilities, ocean and inland waterway ports. The topics covered include: urban commodity movements, urban truck travel relationships, urban truck accidents and incidents, rail-truck intermodal transportation and terminals and air cargo.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Commodity", "Business", "Transportation planning", "Engineering", "Finance" ], "cited_by_count": 12, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://trid.trb.org/view/466353" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4214556994", "doi": "10.3390/su14052645", "title": "Estimation of the Origin-Destination Matrix for Trucks That Use Highways: A Case Study in Chile", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-02-24", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Franco Basso", "Raúl Pezoa", "Nicolás F. Tapia", "Mauricio Varas" ], "first_author": "Franco Basso", "venue": "Sustainability", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "Nowadays, freight transport is crucial in the functioning of cities worldwide. To dig further into the understanding of urban freight transport movements, in this research, we conducted a case study in which we estimated an origin-destination matrix for the trucks traveling on Autopista Central, one of Santiago de Chile’s most important urban highways. To do so, we used full real-world vehicle-by-vehicle information of freight vehicles’ movements along the highway. This data was collected from several toll collection gates equipped with free-flow and automatic vehicle identification technology. However, this data did not include any vehicle information before or after using the highway. To estimate the origins and destinations of these trips, we proposed a multisource methodology that used GPS information provided by SimpliRoute, a Chilean routing company. Nevertheless, this GPS data involved only a small subset of trucks that used the highway. In order to reduce the bias, we built a decision tree model for estimating the trips’ origin, whose input data was complemented by other public databases. Furthermore, we computed trip destinations using proportionality factors obtained from SimpliRoute data. Our results showed that most of the estimated origins belonged to outskirt municipalities, while the estimated destinations were mainly located in the downtown area. Our findings might help improve freight transport comprehension in the city, enabling the implementation of focused transport policies and investments to help mitigate negative externalities, such as congestion and pollution.", "keywords": [ "Destinations", "TRIPS architecture", "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Global Positioning System", "Geographic information system", "Computer science", "Identification (biology)", "Flow network", "Business", "Geography", "Tourism" ], "cited_by_count": 18, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/5/2645/pdf?version=1645710769" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4407506210", "doi": "10.1007/978-3-031-80775-6_1", "title": "Last-Mile Delivery Optimization Using Mixed Electric Vehicles, UAVs and Full Truck Delivery Based on Artificial Intelligence Algorithms", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-01-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Bouhia Hanaa", "Jamal Benhra", "Wissal Ed-dehbi" ], "first_author": "Bouhia Hanaa", "venue": "Communications in computer and information science", "publisher": "Springer Science+Business Media", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "Mile", "Computer science", "Last mile (transportation)", "Algorithm", "Artificial intelligence", "Automotive engineering", "Engineering", "Physics" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-80775-6_1" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2024680142", "doi": "10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.04.020", "title": "Urban freight transport in a metropolitan context: The Belo Horizonte city case study", "year": 2010, "publication_date": "2010-01-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "David José Ahouagi Váz de Magalhães" ], "first_author": "David José Ahouagi Váz de Magalhães", "venue": "Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "This paper presents the findings of a freight transport study carried out for Belo Horizonte city (Brazil). Based on surveys on the main accessing roads to the Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Region (RMBH), it was noted that 30% of the trucks circulated empty inside the Belo Horizonte Central Area, and among those that contained some load, one could observe the use of less than 50% of their load capacity. On the other hand, the largest trucks carried loads that weighted 23% above their nominal capacity. These facts suggest an approach based on the concept of City Logistics should be applied in the management of the freight transport for the whole metropolitan region.", "keywords": [ "Metropolitan area", "Truck", "Context (archaeology)", "Transport engineering", "Central city", "Business", "City logistics", "Geography", "Regional science", "Engineering", "Archaeology" ], "cited_by_count": 20, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042810010736/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3148587551", "doi": "10.1109/access.2021.3069415", "title": "Urban Logistics Delivery Route Planning Based on a Single Metro Line", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Changjiang Zheng", "Yuhang Gu", "Jinxing Shen", "Muqing Du" ], "first_author": "Changjiang Zheng", "venue": "IEEE Access", "publisher": "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers", "abstract": "This paper proposed a framework to integrate metro for urban logistics delivery in order to avert the conflicts with ground transportation, reduce delivery cost, transport distance and delivery time of vehicles. Integrating metro-based Underground Logistics System (ULS) with ground delivery vehicles (GDVs), an urban logistics delivery path optimization model based on a single metro line was built to improve delivery efficiency. In handling this model, total transport cost was taken as the objective function by considering the capacity limitations of GDVs and soft customer time window (CTW), vehicle routing problem with Time Windows (VRPTW) was also taken into account. By means of the saving algorithm (CW algorithm) and the improved Tabu Search algorithm (CWTS), our established model was solved to optimize the delivery routes under metro-based ULS. Through the case analysis of a Logistics Transport Enterprise (LTE) in Nanjing, it was shown that our proposed algorithm consistently outperformed Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) in taking less computation time and obtaining better results. Our proposed delivery mode also had a great advantage compared to the traditional truck delivery (TD) alone in terms of saving cost and guaranteeing the quality of service (QoS). The sensitivity analysis of the capacity offered an optimal GDV capacity setting to reduce total delivery cost.", "keywords": [ "Computer science", "Ant colony optimization algorithms", "Vehicle routing problem", "Particle swarm optimization", "Tabu search", "City logistics", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Delivery Performance", "Metaheuristic", "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Operations research" ], "cited_by_count": 30, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ielx7/6287639/9312710/09388659.pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W103459621", "doi": "10.17265/1934-7359/2012.03.001", "title": "A Delivery Approach Modeling for Urban Freight Restocking", "year": 2012, "publication_date": "2012-03-28", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Agostino Nuzzolo", "Umberto Crisalli", "Antonio Comi" ], "first_author": "Agostino Nuzzolo", "venue": "Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture", "publisher": "David Publishing Company", "abstract": "This paper proposes a modeling system developed in order to analyze the urban freight transport and logistics within urban and metropolitan areas. A review of models developed to simulate this segment of mobility is also reported. The review analysis highlights the limits of models for the ex-ante assessment of city logistics measures. For this reason this paper proposes a new modeling system approach for the assessment of city logistics measures. It is made of different steps approaching problems related to: quantity OD flows, restocking type OD flows, delivery OD flows, delivery OD flows for vehicle type and vehicle OD flows. This modeling system has been specified and calibrated using some surveys car-ried out in the inner area of Rome where more than 500 truck drivers and more than 600 retailers have been interviewed.", "keywords": [ "Metropolitan area", "Transport engineering", "Truck", "Externality", "Order (exchange)", "Business", "Traffic management", "Point (geometry)", "Traffic congestion", "City logistics", "Urban area", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 14, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.17265/1934-7359/2012.03.001" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4388128130", "doi": "10.1049/itr2.12437", "title": "CO 2 emissions and delivery time of last‐mile drone delivery using trucks", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-11-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Sung Ho Hur", "Minsu Won" ], "first_author": "Sung Ho Hur", "venue": "IET Intelligent Transport Systems", "publisher": "Institution of Engineering and Technology", "abstract": "Abstract The shift in consumer behaviour from in‐person to online shopping has led to an increase in parcel delivery volume and its associated negative impacts, such as CO 2 emissions in cities. With the emergence of drone‐delivery technologies, the authors analyzed a joint delivery method using drones and trucks, which is an emerging alternative solution for last‐mile delivery in terms of CO 2 emissions and delivery time. The analysis verified the highest possible level of reduction in CO 2 emissions for the simultaneous and strategic operation of drones and trucks compared to diesel‐ or electric‐only truck operations. Moreover, this approach leads to reduced delivery times. A sensitivity analysis was performed to optimize the delivery‐drone flight performance in a drone‐and‐truck delivery strategy. It was found that a 1.5‐km drone flight performance was sufficient when considering the reasonable assumptions adopted in this study. Furthermore, based on the analysis results, drone‐and‐truck cooperative delivery strategies may not provide a significant advantage in terms of CO 2 emissions compared with alternative transportation modes, such as fuel‐cell trucks with sufficiently low emissions. It has been empirically verified that changes in CO 2 emissions are proportional to the number of clusters. However, there is a risk of local optima due to microscopic fluctuations among neighbouring cluster numbers, which occurs during the search for the optimal number of clusters.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Diesel fuel", "Food delivery", "Transport engineering", "Last mile (transportation)", "Cluster (spacecraft)", "Mile", "Automotive engineering", "Environmental science", "Computer science", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 18, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1049/itr2.12437" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4309047152", "doi": "10.1016/j.tra.2022.11.003", "title": "Joint modeling of arrivals and parking durations for freight loading zones: Potential applications to improving urban logistics", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-11-13", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Lokesh Kumar Kalahasthi", "Iván Sánchez-Díaz", "Juan Pablo Castrellon", "Jorge Gil", "Michael J. Browne", "Simon Hayes", "Carles Sentís Ros" ], "first_author": "Lokesh Kumar Kalahasthi", "venue": "Transportation Research Part A Policy and Practice", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "This paper analyzes truck parking patterns in urban freight loading zones by jointly modeling the vehicle arrival rates and the parking durations. Three models were explored: 1) Count data (Negative Binomial) for vehicle arrivals, 2) Survival (Weibull) model for parking duration and 3) A joint model for arrivals and duration. The count data model estimates the parking demand i.e., the rate of truck arrival, while the survival model estimates the probability that a truck is parked for one more minute. The joint model is compared with separate models for predictability and performance. The dataset used in this research is obtained using a mobile phone parking application, at eight loading zones in the city Vic, Spain over an 18-month period from July 2018 to December 2019, comprised of vehicle parking durations, date, time of arrival and departure, professional activity, and vehicle type (weight). The parking activity data are complemented with built in environment variables of the loading zones, such as the number of establishments in a certain radius, the average walking distance to establishments, the presence of pedestrian pavement, the number of traffic lanes, among others. The joint model outperforms the models estimating the arrival rates and durations separately in goodness of fit and predictability. The model results showed that truck arrival rates vary significantly across days of the week, months, and arrival times. The parking durations are highly dependent on professional activity, vehicle type, and size. Tuesdays and Wednesdays have higher arrival rates compared to other days of a week (except Sundays). Among activities, the transport and parcels require longer parking durations. Among the vehicle types, trucks with gross weight larger than 3.5 tons park longer. This paper concludes by explaining the potential of these modeling approaches in improving urban freight operations, evaluation of various policy implications, limitations, and future research.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Weibull distribution", "Goodness of fit", "Negative binomial distribution", "Duration (music)", "Transport engineering", "Predictability", "Joint (building)", "Computer science", "Statistics", "Poisson distribution", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 28, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856422002865/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4295592551", "doi": "10.3390/drones6090249", "title": "Impact of the Integration of First-Mile and Last-Mile Drone-Based Operations from Trucks on Energy Efficiency and the Environment", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-09-11", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Tamás Bányai" ], "first_author": "Tamás Bányai", "venue": "Drones", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "Supply chain solutions are based on first-mile and last-mile deliveries; their efficiency significantly influences the total cost of operation. Drone technologies make it possible to improve first-mile and last-mile operations, but the design and optimization of these solutions offers new challenges. Within the frame of this article, the author focuses on the impact of integrated first-mile/last-mile drone-based delivery services from trucks, analyzing the impact of solutions on energy efficiency, the environmental impact and sustainability. The author describes a novel model of drone-based integrated first-mile/last-mile services which makes it possible to analyze the impact of different typical solutions on sustainability. As the numerical examples and computational results show, the integrated first-mile-last-mile drone-based service from trucks could lead to a significant reduction in energy consumption and a reduction in virtual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which would lead to a more sustainable logistics system. The numerical analysis of the scenarios shows that the increased application of drones and the integration of first-mile and last-mile delivery operations could decrease energy consumption by about 87%. This reduction in energy consumption, depending on the generation source of electricity, significantly increases the reduction in greenhouse gas emission.", "keywords": [ "Mile", "Last mile (transportation)", "Truck", "Drone", "Energy consumption", "Greenhouse gas", "Engineering", "Environmental science", "Transport engineering", "Computer science", "Automotive engineering", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 19, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/6/9/249/pdf?version=1663315895" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3128252576", "doi": "10.1287/trsc.2020.1017", "title": "Exact Methods for the Traveling Salesman Problem with Drone", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-02-05", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Roberto Roberti", "Mario Ruthmair" ], "first_author": "Roberto Roberti", "venue": "Transportation Science", "publisher": "Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences", "abstract": "Efficiently handling last-mile deliveries becomes more and more important nowadays. Using drones to support classical vehicles allows improving delivery schedules as long as efficient solution methods to plan last-mile deliveries with drones are available. We study exact solution approaches for some variants of the traveling salesman problem with drone (TSP-D) in which a truck and a drone are teamed up to serve a set of customers. This combination of truck and drone can exploit the benefits of both vehicle types: the truck has a large capacity but usually low travel speed in urban areas; the drone is faster and not restricted to street networks, but its range and carrying capacity are limited. We propose a compact mixed-integer linear program (MILP) for several TSP-D variants that is based on timely synchronizing truck and drone flows; such an MILP is easy to implement but nevertheless leads to competitive results compared with the state-of-the-art MILPs. Furthermore, we introduce dynamic programming recursions to model several TSP-D variants. We show how these dynamic programming recursions can be exploited in an exact branch-and-price approach based on a set partitioning formulation using ng-route relaxation and a three-level hierarchical branching. The proposed branch-and-price can solve instances with up to 39 customers to optimality outperforming the state-of-the-art by more than doubling the manageable instance size. Finally, we analyze different scenarios and show that even a single drone can significantly reduce a route’s completion time when the drone is sufficiently fast.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Travelling salesman problem", "Computer science", "Truck", "Mathematical optimization", "Integer programming", "Linear programming", "Lagrangian relaxation", "Linear programming relaxation", "Exploit", "Set (abstract data type)", "Last mile (transportation)" ], "cited_by_count": 239, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/0f9ac9eb-c330-4734-90fc-94fdab2e6a46" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4416971586", "doi": "10.20944/preprints202512.0417.v1", "title": "GIS-Enabled Truck–Drone Hybrid Systems for Agricultural Last-Mile Delivery: A Multidisciplinary Review with Insights from a Rural Region", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-12-04", "type": "preprint", "language": null, "authors": [ "Imran Badshah", "Raj Bridgelall", "Emmanuel Anu Thompson" ], "first_author": "Imran Badshah", "venue": "Preprints.org", "publisher": null, "abstract": "Efficient last-mile delivery remains a critical challenge for rural agricultural logistics, globally, particularly in cold-climate regions with dispersed agricultural operations. This review evaluates the potential of GIS-enabled truck–drone hybrid systems to overcome infrastructural, environmental, and operational barriers in such settings. This study uses North Dakota, USA as a representative case alongside insights from similar rural regions worldwide. The study conducts a systematic review of 82 high-quality publications. It identifies seven interconnected research domains: GIS analytics, truck–drone coordination, smart agriculture integration, rural implementation, sustainability assessment, strategic design, and data security. The findings stipulate that GIS enhances hybrid logistics through route optimization, launch site planning, and real-time monitoring. Additionally, this study emphasizes the rural, low-density context and identifies specific gaps related to cold-weather performance, restrictions to line-of-sight operations, and economic feasibility in ultra-low-density delivery networks. The study concludes with a roadmap for research and policy development to enable practical deployment in cold-climate agricultural regions.", "keywords": [ "Sustainability", "Multidisciplinary approach", "Agriculture", "Context (archaeology)", "Software deployment", "Hybrid system", "Rural area", "Rural development" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.preprints.org/frontend/manuscript/663b7033baad86623447f39ef81a277c/download_pub" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2251838373", "doi": "10.1007/978-3-319-13194-8_20", "title": "Strategies to Increase the Profitability of Electric Vehicles in Urban Freight Transport", "year": 2015, "publication_date": "2015-01-01", "type": "book-chapter", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Tessa T. Taefi", "Jochen Kreutzfeldt", "Tobias Held", "Andréas Fink" ], "first_author": "Tessa T. Taefi", "venue": "Green energy and technology", "publisher": "Springer Science+Business Media", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Profitability index", "Transport engineering", "Business", "City logistics", "Engineering", "Finance" ], "cited_by_count": 22, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13194-8_20" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4388895620", "doi": "10.2139/ssrn.4617827", "title": "Recipient-Dependent Last-Mile Delivery Routing with Autonomous Vehicle Applications", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-01-01", "type": "preprint", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Bahar D. Viniche", "Mehdi Nourinejad", "Opher Baron", "Oded Berman" ], "first_author": "Bahar D. Viniche", "venue": "SSRN Electronic Journal", "publisher": "RELX Group (Netherlands)", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Last mile (transportation)", "Mile", "Vehicle routing problem", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Computer science", "Transport engineering", "Engineering", "Business", "Computer network", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4617827" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4236278152", "doi": "10.2208/journalip.18.1", "title": "City Logistics", "year": 2001, "publication_date": "2001-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Eiichi TANIGUCHI" ], "first_author": "Eiichi TANIGUCHI", "venue": "INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING REVIEW", "publisher": null, "abstract": "This paper proposes an idea of city logistics for optimising urban freight transport by takinginto account the environment, the congestion and energy consumption. The basic concepts of city logistics as well as some measures of city logistics with examples are presented. The paper also describes modelling the vehicle routing and scheduling of pickup/delivery trucks and the optimal location of logistics terminals for evaluating the city logistics schemes. Moreover, the future perspectives concerning urban freight transport planning are presented.", "keywords": [ "City logistics", "Traffic management", "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Scheduling (production processes)", "Humanitarian Logistics", "Energy consumption", "Vehicle routing problem", "Computer science", "Business", "Operations research", "Traffic congestion" ], "cited_by_count": 9, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/journalip1984/18/0/18_0_1/_pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W7124829156", "doi": "10.1007/s12597-025-01082-x", "title": "Improving last-mile delivery in humanitarian logistics by solving a two-echelon routing problem with portering and infrastructure disruptions", "year": 2026, "publication_date": "2026-01-19", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "İsmail Nurullah Mutlu", "Ergül Kısa Toğrul", "Hande Cansın Kazanç", "Kaan Kılıç", "Mehmet Soysal" ], "first_author": "İsmail Nurullah Mutlu", "venue": "OPSEARCH", "publisher": "Springer Science+Business Media", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "Humanitarian Logistics", "Vehicle routing problem", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Integer programming", "Heuristic", "Set (abstract data type)", "Humanitarian aid" ], "cited_by_count": 2, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/s12597-025-01082-x" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4410530704", "doi": "10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108604", "title": "Impediment ranking and solutions for enhancing electric freight vehicle uptake in urban logistics", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-05-20", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Aalok Kumar", "Pooja Goel", "Sunil Tiwari" ], "first_author": "Aalok Kumar", "venue": "Energy Economics", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Ranking (information retrieval)", "City logistics", "Business", "Transport engineering", "Environmental economics", "Operations research", "Computer science", "Economics", "Engineering", "Artificial intelligence" ], "cited_by_count": 5, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108604" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2980871308", "doi": "10.1016/j.procs.2019.09.326", "title": "Applying Multi-Criteria Analysis of Electrically Powered Vehicles Implementation in Urban Freight Transport", "year": 2019, "publication_date": "2019-01-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Kinga Kijewska", "Stanisław Iwan", "Krzysztof Małecki" ], "first_author": "Kinga Kijewska", "venue": "Procedia Computer Science", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "One of the most important problems in the cities is atmospheric emission of anthropogenic origin. This problem is the key challenge mostly for city municipalities but also for business stakeholders, which are involved in freight transport at urban areas. One of the most important and efficient solutions to reduce this negative impact is implementation of electric vehicles. In recent years many activities and developments in this area have been done. This paper is focused on utilization of multi-criteria analysis for electric vehicles selection in the context of their usability for deliveries realization in cities. Moreover, it also presents general issues regarding the use of alternative fuels in motor vehicles, with emphasis on electric vehicles. It discusses the extent to which electric vehicles are used. It describes the key parameters for determining the usability of electric vehicles in urban deliveries. Based on the formulated assumptions, a multi-criteria model is proposed to enable selecting, out of the defined vehicles catalogue, solutions that are optimal in terms of potential effectiveness. The general aim of the paper is to support the logistics companies’ decision makers in the improvement of the freight vehicles fleets, taking into account the sustainable city logistics expectations.", "keywords": [ "Usability", "Context (archaeology)", "Computer science", "Key (lock)", "Traffic management", "Transport engineering", "Sustainable transport", "Realization (probability)", "Environmental economics", "Operations research", "Sustainability", "Computer security" ], "cited_by_count": 24, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050919315261/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2156133369", "doi": "10.1007/978-3-319-17181-4_7", "title": "Vehicle Orientated Initiatives for Improving the Environmental Performance of Urban Freight Systems", "year": 2015, "publication_date": "2015-01-01", "type": "book-chapter", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Russell George Thompson" ], "first_author": "Russell George Thompson", "venue": "Greening of industry networks studies", "publisher": "Springer International Publishing", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Fuel efficiency", "Traffic management", "Business", "Environmental economics", "City logistics", "Emerging technologies", "Environmental quality", "Fossil fuel", "Air quality index", "Environmental planning", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 18, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17181-4_7" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2808308853", "doi": "10.1155/2018/8439582", "title": "Optimal Urban Logistics Facility Location with Consideration of Truck-Related Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A Case Study of Shenzhen City", "year": 2018, "publication_date": "2018-06-14", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Mi Gan", "Dandan Li", "Mingfei Wang", "Guangyuan Zhang", "Shuai Yang", "Jiyang Liu" ], "first_author": "Mi Gan", "venue": "Mathematical Problems in Engineering", "publisher": "Hindawi Publishing Corporation", "abstract": "The logistics facility location is always involved with great deals of investment. Its construction and operation also bring out a huge amount of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission due to the consumption of building materials, energy, the running of trucks, and other logistics equipment. Particularly, trucking activities in the urban logistics networks (ULN) are a major source of GHG. This paper aims to formulate an eco-facility location model to minimize both the total cost of ULN construction and operation and the GHG emissions of truck trips. Based on the mathematical relations of GHG emissions rates and several macroscopic factors, which we obtained by multivariate regression analysis on a large set of empirical trucking data in our previous research, the data-driven emissions rates estimation function is acquired. Then, we link the estimation function of each trip purpose by various kinds of logistics facilities through a qualitative analysis. The eco-facility location problem is modeled by integrating the pure facility location model and the GHG emissions function. The problem is first converted to a biobjective mixed-integer program, and the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm is applied to solve the model. Through experiments with real case, the effectiveness of the models and algorithms is verified. The eco-facility location model for ULN tends to obtain the environment-friendly location decision. Our analytical results also verify the hypothesis that locations of facility do impact the relevant truck-related GHG emissions, especially to transfer transport, as well as inbound and outbound freight.", "keywords": [ "Greenhouse gas", "Truck", "Facility location problem", "Particle swarm optimization", "Transport engineering", "Total cost", "Engineering", "Environmental science", "Computer science", "Operations research", "Automotive engineering", "Business" ], "cited_by_count": 8, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1155/2018/8439582" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2013470069", "doi": "10.1016/j.rtbm.2014.06.010", "title": "Managing urban freight transport in an expanding city — Case study of Ahmedabad", "year": 2014, "publication_date": "2014-07-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Shivanand Swamy", "Deepak Baindur" ], "first_author": "Shivanand Swamy", "venue": "Research in Transportation Business & Management", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Zoning", "Business", "Traffic management", "Transport engineering", "City logistics", "Land use", "Environmental planning", "Geography", "Civil engineering", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 22, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rtbm.2014.06.010" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2749510236", "doi": "10.1007/s12544-017-0262-8", "title": "The complexity of planning for goods delivery in a shared urban space: a case study involving cyclists and trucks", "year": 2017, "publication_date": "2017-08-18", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Kelly Pitera", "Petr Pokorny", "Terje Solsvik Kristensen", "Astrid Bjørgen" ], "first_author": "Kelly Pitera", "venue": "European Transport Research Review", "publisher": "Springer Science+Business Media", "abstract": "Growth in urban areas has resulted in conflicts between road users as they share the roadway. Such conflicts are only exacerbated by failings in the planning process. The purpose of this study is to examine, through a case study in Trondheim, Norway, issues related to freight delivery on a street section with a high volume of cyclists in order to identify how and where urban freight should be addressed within the urban planning process. The study consists of two parts: (1) a safety evaluation of the location through video recordings which identifies the risk areas associated with freight delivery and encounters with cyclists, and (2) a mapping of the planning process through semi-structured interviews in order to understand the development decisions involving a facility requiring deliveries and the surrounding streetscape. The safety analysis identified several risk areas mainly associated with the turning manoeuvres of trucks undertaken either before or after deliveries. The mapping of the planning process indicated that there were few to no discussions of freight deliveries during the planning, design and construction of the building; neither were there any for the streetscape projects taking place within the same time frame. The absence of a dedicated freight policy and/or personnel at the governing authority, as well as lack of coordination amongst different plans (construction, street, thematic), are likely to lead to continued problematic and potentially dangerous environments such as that in the case study. Improvements to the Norwegian planning process, namely earlier integration of freight considerations, are required to ensure sustainable freight systems in the urban environment.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Process (computing)", "Order (exchange)", "Transportation planning", "Urban planning", "Business", "Engineering", "Operations management", "Civil engineering", "Computer science" ], "cited_by_count": 22, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs12544-017-0262-8.pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4398793435", "doi": "10.1016/j.tre.2024.103573", "title": "The multi-fleet delivery problem combined with trucks, tricycles, and drones for last-mile logistics efficiency requirements under multiple budget constraints", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-05-24", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Enming Chen", "Zhongbao Zhou", "Ruiyang Li", "Zhongxiang Chang", "Jianmai Shi" ], "first_author": "Enming Chen", "venue": "Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "Mile", "Last mile (transportation)", "Transport engineering", "Drone", "Operations management", "Business", "Environmental science", "Operations research", "Engineering", "Automotive engineering", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 35, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2024.103573" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4415044666", "doi": "10.20944/preprints202510.0347.v1", "title": "GIS-Enabled Truck–Drone Hybrid Systems for Agricultural Last-Mile Delivery: A Multidisciplinary Review with Insights from Rural North Dakota", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-10-07", "type": "preprint", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Imran Badshah", "Raj Bridgelall", "Emmanuel Anu Thompson" ], "first_author": "Imran Badshah", "venue": "Preprints.org", "publisher": null, "abstract": "Efficient last-mile delivery remains a major challenge for agriculture in rural regions such as the state of North Dakota in the United States. In these regions, farms are large, dispersed, and dependent on timely access to inputs. Truck–drone hybrid systems offer a potential solution by combining the long-haul capacity of trucks with the speed and flexibility of drones. Economic studies indicate that such proposed hybrid systems can enable faster, lower-cost, and more sustainable delivery of small, time-critical packages. This research further reviews the role of geographic information systems (GIS) in enabling these systems. A combined systematic and thematic review of 82 high-quality publications identifies five domains: GIS applications, truck–drone coordination, smart agriculture integration, rural implementation, and sustainability impacts. The findings show that GIS supports route optimization, drone launch-site selection, and real-time monitoring. Beyond the capacity of drones to extend reach and reduce delays, integrating IoT and AI platforms enhances decision-making and improves efficiency. However, constraints include federal regulations, payload limits, harsh weather (especially in rural areas), and cybersecurity risks. This review concludes that GIS-enabled truck–drone systems can transform agricultural logistics and rural resilience if providers can address regulatory, technical, and security challenges through coordinated innovation.", "keywords": [ "Agriculture", "Sustainability", "Drone", "Geographic information system", "Flexibility (engineering)", "Resilience (materials science)", "Food security", "Hybrid system", "Multidisciplinary approach" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.preprints.org/frontend/manuscript/5fe2a6a7ab3b655d9123d6ef3f1704ca/download_pub" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3085636696", "doi": "10.1016/j.trpro.2020.08.053", "title": "Assessment of urban freight travel characteristics - A case study of Delhi", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Madhu Errampalli", "Kayitha Ravinder", "Ravi Sekhar Chalumuri", "Lóránt Antal Tavasszy", "Jeroen H.C. Borst", "Satish Chandra" ], "first_author": "Madhu Errampalli", "venue": "Transportation research procedia", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "India spends 15-20% of its GDP on transport and logistics and Indian freight transport market is expected to grow at a CAGR of about 13% by 2020. Road freight constitutes around 63% of total freight movement and the average speed of trucks on Indian roads is about 20 km/hr covers only 250-300 km a day compared to 700-800 km in developed countries. Moreover, the total trip expenses increases about 15% due to the delays at check-posts by Transport Department and Traffic Police, toll plazas etc. The working conditions of truck drivers also deteriorate as they work for long hours, resulting in high stress and fatigue leading to accidents. The need is recognized for collaboration amongst stakeholders to identify optimal freight policies and pursue a rapid deployment of improvements. In this direction, creating better data and models are needed to enable planners to better predict freight movement and design better informed policies. In the present study, the freight transport data has been exhaustively collected to assess the urban freight characteristics of Delhi. For this purpose, the field surveys namely outer cordon traffic surveys at 10 locations and focal point survey at 20 locations within the city have been conducted. The results can make a good database to understand the freight characteristics of a city and it would be highly useful in developing freight travel demand models and also evaluate appropriate freight related transport policies for their effective implementation on the urban road network by the policy makers and concerned authorities.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Toll", "Work (physics)", "Traffic management", "Business", "Software deployment", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 18, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352146520304695?via%3Dihub" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2884354153", "doi": null, "title": "Electric freight vehicles in city logistics : insights into decision making process of frontrunner companies", "year": 2017, "publication_date": "2017-03-15", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Martijn Altenburg", "Nilesh Anand", "Susanne Balm", "W. Ploos van Amstel" ], "first_author": "Martijn Altenburg", "venue": "Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS)", "publisher": "Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences", "abstract": "To achieve emission reduction targets and to improve local air quality of cities, the uptake of Electric Freight Vehicles (EFV) is essential. Knowledge concerning why companies do adopt EFV is lacking. Research about the diffusion of innovations and the market of EFV shows that frontrunner companies with an innovative or early adopting mindset are adopting (or willing to adopt) EFV. Increase in demand of EFV by such companies can help take a step forward towards mass production of EFV and eventually reduction in purchase cost of EFV. The main objective of this paper is to get insights into the decision-making attributes of frontrunner companies. A qualitative approach was used and 14 interviews were conducted among frontrunner companies delivering goods in the city of Amsterdam. Results show that innovators and early adopters are all motivated by socially or environmentally positive effects of EFV. Strategic motives played a role for all companies who already adopted EFV. All companies wanted to adopt EFV but technical limitations, due specialrequirements for the goods transported, are a reason to not adopt EFV. Getting insights into the preferences of frontrunner companies, the (local) authorities can adjust their policy, schemes and sustainability campaigns to attract more companies adopting EFV. Manufacturing companies can use the insights from this research to adapt their vehicle technology to answer needs of the potential customer for faster adoption rate.", "keywords": [ "Business", "Mindset", "Process (computing)", "Sustainability", "Quality (philosophy)", "Industrial organization", "Marketing", "Computer science" ], "cited_by_count": 6, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://research.hva.nl/en/publications/d2896c54-2b94-432d-9862-804dcddea253" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2951295202", "doi": null, "title": "City logistics: light and electric: LEFV-LOGIC: research on light electric freight vehicles", "year": 2018, "publication_date": "2018-08-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "W. Ploos van Amstel", "Susanne Balm", "Jos Warmerdam", "Martin Boerema", "Martijn Altenburg", "Frank Rieck", "Toin Peters" ], "first_author": "W. Ploos van Amstel", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Electric light", "Transport engineering", "Electric cars", "Business", "Automotive engineering", "Computer science", "Engineering", "Electrical engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 6, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://pure.hva.nl/ws/files/5256448/lefv_logic.english.pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3134157027", "doi": "10.1016/j.scs.2021.102806", "title": "Evaluating problems and measures for a sustainable urban freight transport in Brazilian historical cities", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-02-26", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Leise Kelli de Oliveira", "João Guilherme da Costa Braga França", "Carla de Oliveira Leite Nascimento", "Isabela Kopperschmidt de Oliveira", "Leonardo Herszon Meira", "Lígia Rabay" ], "first_author": "Leise Kelli de Oliveira", "venue": "Sustainable Cities and Society", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "City logistics", "Descriptive statistics", "Transport engineering", "Logistic regression", "Sustainable transport", "Business", "Regression analysis", "Cultural heritage", "Regional science", "World heritage", "Environmental planning" ], "cited_by_count": 24, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.102806" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2559559896", "doi": null, "title": "Cargo Cycles for Local and Last Mile Delivery: Lessons from New York City", "year": 2015, "publication_date": "2015-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Alison J. Conway" ], "first_author": "Alison J. Conway", "venue": "PDXScholar (Portland State University)", "publisher": "Portland State University", "abstract": "Cities depend on safe and efficient goods movement to support community livability and a healthy economy. However, delivery of goods in an urban environment presents a tremendous challenge. Traditional motorized vehicles used for goods movement – ranging from cargo vans to box trucks - are inherently incompatible with (1) the multimodal street environments of modern cities, with clean, quiet conditions preferred by residents, and (2) larger environmental sustainability goals. As freight flows continue to grow with the demands of global trade, new urban freight and city logistics solutions are needed. Cargo cycles – human powered cycles equipped with freight carrying capacity – offer a potential alternative to reduce freight externalities. This presentation will discuss the results of the recently completed “Freight Tricycles in New York City (NYC)” project, which aimed to evaluate the potential for cargo cycles as a local and last-mile freight transportation mode and to understand the traffic performance and externalities of cargo cycles compared to motorized delivery modes in NYC conditions.", "keywords": [ "Mile", "Last mile (transportation)", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/trec_seminar/21" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2892781087", "doi": "10.1016/bs.atpp.2018.07.004", "title": "Institutional Influences on the Development of Urban Freight Transport Policies by Local Authorities", "year": 2018, "publication_date": "2018-01-01", "type": "book-chapter", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Emine Zehra Akgün", "Jason Monios" ], "first_author": "Emine Zehra Akgün", "venue": "Advances in transport policy and planning", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Business", "Mandate", "Normative", "Government (linguistics)", "Local government", "Order (exchange)", "Public economics", "Environmental planning", "Finance", "Public administration", "Political science", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 14, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.atpp.2018.07.004" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3039823371", "doi": "10.1109/tits.2020.3003598", "title": "Two-Echelon Dispatching Problem With Mobile Satellites in City Logistics", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-06-30", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Yulin Lan", "Fagui Liu", "Zhixing Huang", "Wing W. Y. Ng", "Jinghui Zhong" ], "first_author": "Yulin Lan", "venue": "IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems", "publisher": "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers", "abstract": "At present, city logistics mostly adopts a two-echelon dispatching model which combines distribution centers located in suburbs and fixed satellites located in urban areas for distribution. However, both expensive rental fees and daily changes of customer demand in metropolitan areas make dispatching route generated by fixed satellites inefficient. Moreover, the existing mobile depot model needs a large investment for facilities. In this paper, we propose a two-echelon city dispatching model with mobile satellites (2ECD-MS) which locations of mobile satellites change according to demands of customers to ensure the efficiency of delivery routes in every day. A cluster-based variable neighborhood search scheduling algorithm is proposed to determine locations of mobile satellites and dispatching routes of trucks and tricycles. Then, the 2ECD-MS is extended to 2ECD-MS-TDD to allow trucks dispatching directly (TDD) for further cost reduction. Experimental results show that the 2ECD-MS significantly reduces the total cost against the model using fixed satellites mode by 3.5% while the 2ECD-MS-TDD further reduces the total cost against the 2ECD-MS significantly by 3.25% in 54 cases with different customer scales, geographical scopes, and distribution types. These show the superiority of the proposed methods in cost reduction for city logistics in comparison to the traditional fixed model.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Metropolitan area", "Scheduling (production processes)", "Computer science", "Renting", "Cost reduction", "City logistics", "Transport engineering", "Total cost", "Operations research", "Real-time computing", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 21, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1109/tits.2020.3003598" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4379933546", "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2306.04219", "title": "A Decomposition Approach to Last Mile Delivery Using Public\\n Transportation Systems", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-06-07", "type": "preprint", "language": null, "authors": [ "Minakshi Punam Mandal", "Claudia Archetti" ], "first_author": "Minakshi Punam Mandal", "venue": "arXiv (Cornell University)", "publisher": "Cornell University", "abstract": "This study explores the potential of using public transportation systems for\\nfreight delivery, where we intend to utilize the spare capacities of public\\nvehicles like buses, trams, metros, and trains, particularly during off-peak\\nhours, to transport packages within the city instead of using dedicated\\ndelivery vehicles. The study contributes {to the growing} literature on\\ninnovative strategies for performing sustainable last mile deliveries. We study\\nan operational level problem called the Three-Tier Delivery Problem on Public\\nTransportation, where packages are first transported from the Consolidation and\\nDistribution Center (CDC) to nearby public vehicle stations by delivery trucks.\\nFrom there, public vehicles transport them into the city area. The last leg of\\nthe delivery is performed to deliver the packages to their respective customers\\nusing green vehicles or eco-friendly systems. We propose mixed-integer linear\\nprogramming formulations to study the transport of packages from the CDC to the\\ncustomers, use decomposition approaches to solve them, and provide numerical\\nexperiments to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the system. Our\\nresults show that this system has the potential to drastically reduce the\\nlength of trips performed by dedicated delivery vehicles, thereby reducing the\\nnegative social and environmental impacts of existing last mile delivery\\nsystems.\\n", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Last mile (transportation)", "Public transport", "Transport engineering", "Spare part", "City logistics", "Train", "TRIPS architecture", "Computer science", "Consolidation (business)", "Delivery system", "Mile" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.04219" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2030146502", "doi": "10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.03.138", "title": "A System of Models for the Simulation of Urban Freight Restocking Tours", "year": 2012, "publication_date": "2012-01-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Agostino Nuzzolo", "Umberto Crisalli", "Antonio Comi" ], "first_author": "Agostino Nuzzolo", "venue": "Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "The paper proposes a modelling system for simulating freight tours within urban and metropolitan areas using the tour-based approach. In particular, the proposed model allows us to define vehicle Origin-Destination (O-D) matrices satisfying a given delivery O-D matrices by modelling the definition of the trip-chain order and the choice of the delivery location. The modelling system has been calibrated and validated on the basis of more than 500 truck driver interviews carried out in the city centre of Rome.", "keywords": [ "Metropolitan area", "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Computer science", "Order (exchange)", "Operations research", "Geography", "Engineering", "Business", "Automotive engineering", "Finance" ], "cited_by_count": 15, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042812006052/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4286376539", "doi": "10.2139/ssrn.4167190", "title": "Drone-Assisted Last-Mile Delivery Problem by Covering Salesman Problem with Nodes and Segments", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-01-01", "type": "preprint", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Hosang Song", "Abdullahi Mohammed Jingi", "Xinan Yang" ], "first_author": "Hosang Song", "venue": "SSRN Electronic Journal", "publisher": "RELX Group (Netherlands)", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Travelling salesman problem", "Mile", "Drone", "Last mile (transportation)", "Computer science", "Mathematical optimization", "2-opt", "Mathematics", "Geography", "Biology", "Geodesy" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4167190" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W629915279", "doi": "10.21949/1403252", "title": "Enhanced Framework for Modeling Urban Truck Trips", "year": 2000, "publication_date": "2000-02-10", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Howard Slavin" ], "first_author": "Howard Slavin", "venue": "ROSA P", "publisher": null, "abstract": "Recently there has been renewed interest in modeling urban truck movements. This is potentially important for improving traffic forecasts as well as for a host of other applications including ITS. There are unique aspects of urban freight movements, such as trip chaining, that must be considered for credible models. Most urban truck trips occur on tours comprised of many vehicle trips that are chained together for efficient routing. This paper discusses models for intraurban trips and provides an enhanced framework for modeling urban truck trips that is workable for most MPOs. This framework can be implemented in the form of either aggregate or disaggregate models at the zone or establishment levels, respectively. Various approaches for overcoming data obstacles are considered including use of truck traffic counts to estimate trip tables. Use of geographic information systems (GIS) and new data sources is examined, and practical guidance is provided for model implementation. 13p.", "keywords": [ "TRIPS architecture", "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Chaining", "Trip generation", "Computer science", "Geographic information system", "Geography", "Engineering", "Cartography" ], "cited_by_count": 10, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.21949/1403252" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W652745362", "doi": null, "title": "MODELLING URBAN FREIGHT GENERATION", "year": 1977, "publication_date": "1977-03-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Kenneth W. Ogden" ], "first_author": "Kenneth W. Ogden", "venue": "Traffic engineering & control", "publisher": "Hemming Group", "abstract": "This paper reviews the application of regression-type models in analysing the generation of urban freight, and presents the results of an investigation of the use of such models using data for Melbourne, Australia. The equations which were developed for relating zonal truck trip attraction and production to zonal land-use variables explained a high proportion of the variance in trip-making between zones. However, similar equations relating zonal goods generation in tonnes by commodity to land-use variables were not as successful. /Author/TRRL/", "keywords": [ "Trip generation", "Transport engineering", "Truck", "Land use", "Commodity", "Variance (accounting)", "Regression analysis", "Econometrics", "Engineering", "Civil engineering", "Economics", "Mathematics" ], "cited_by_count": 10, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://trid.trb.org/view/54118" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W1595512938", "doi": "10.6092/1970-9870/496", "title": "Are city logistics solutions sustainable? The Cityporto case", "year": 2011, "publication_date": "2011-10-18", "type": "preprint", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Jesús González-Feliu", "Joëlle Morana" ], "first_author": "Jesús González-Feliu", "venue": "RePEc: Research Papers in Economics", "publisher": "Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis", "abstract": "City logistics studies the best solutions for urban freight distribution with high environmental objectives. However, most actions are started by public authorities without taking into account the impacts of the new organizational schemas in the existing distribution enterprises’ organization. This paper shows how city logistics approaches can meet the goals of Sustainable Development. In order to define the notion of sustainable city logistics, the main aspects of each sphere of sustainable development, respectively economic, environmental and societal, have been investigated. The main aspects of each sphere are described in order to unify the concept of sustainability related to city logistics. Then, we present the successful experience of Cityporto, the urban delivery service for the city of Padova (Italy), started in 2004 that uses low-pollution lorries. So, the service is considered as less polluting as a conventional approach, and is allowed to enter the city centre (including the Limited Traffic Zone) without hour limitations. The study is based on the findings from an exploratory qualitative approach, based on a documentary analysis and a case study research from several interviews that involved three internal stakeholders of Interporto di Padova (the company which manages the intermodal platform of Padova, in charge of Cityporto) and one member of Padova’s Municipality (which promote the project). The results of the case study show that environmental aspect is one of the foundations of the project, but the economic continuity has to be first ensured. Indeed, the preservation of this service on the long term is subjected to its solvency. Moreover, its success is associated to the recognition by employees and customers. With regard to the collected information, it is possible to propose a balanced scorecard, where three axes emerged in connexion with economic, environmental and social dimensions. From this qualitative analysis, a discussion about the sustainability of city logistics solutions is made as conclusion. The article provides a contribution to the evaluation and measurement of city urban logistics using a success story that has been developed from the practitioner perspective. This experience could provide a basis for further practices in Italy and other European countries. Moreover, the relations between city logistics solutions and sustainability are conceptualised and illustrated by the case study, highlighting the main elements for sustainable performance identification and evaluation in this field. In conclusion, this paper conceptualises city logistics in relation with the Sustainable Development, setting the main objectives and steps of urban planning for freight distribution and logistics issues. But above all, it provides an understanding of the key success factors in a sustainable urban distribution organisation that can become a pivotal position in the upstream supply chain.", "keywords": [ "Humanities", "Geography", "Cartography", "Art" ], "cited_by_count": 14, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00530016" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2016548147", "doi": "10.7470/jkst.2012.30.3.107", "title": "A Study on the Characteristics of Urban Truck Movement for the Truck based Urban Freight Demand Model", "year": 2012, "publication_date": "2012-06-30", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Jin-Seok Hahn", "Min-Choul Park", "Hongmo Sung", "Hyung-Bum Kim" ], "first_author": "Jin-Seok Hahn", "venue": "대한교통학회지", "publisher": null, "abstract": "본 연구는 대도시 화물자동차의 화물통행수요 추정을 위한 목적으로 대도시 화물자동차의 통행수요특성을 분석하고자 하였다. 대도시 화물자동차의 통행수요특성은 활동발생과 도착지선택, 그리고 통행사슬행태를 중심으로 분석하였다. 분석결과 출발존의 서비스업 사업체수가 대도시 화물자동차의 활동발생과 도착지 선택에서 주요한 영향을 미치는 요인으로 분석되었다. 그리고 도착지 유형이 도소매업체이고, 운송품목이 음식료품의 경우 통행사슬 내 통행수가 가장 많은 것으로 드러났다. 향후 대도시 화물자동차 통행수요추정시 이러한 변수와 운송품목을 고려할 필요가 있을 것으로 판단된다. The purpose of the study is to analyze the travel characteristics of freight trucks in metropolitan areas, focusing on activity generation, destination choice, and trip chaining behaviors. The results showed that the number of service companies at departure areas has a primary influence on the activity generation pattern and destination choice behavior of trucks in metropolitan areas. The number of trips within a trip chain is largest, in case where the prevailing industry in destination areas is wholesale or retail and the shipment item is food or beverage. These results imply that for the reasonable estimation of truck travel demand both the trip chaining behaviors and the industrial compositions in departure and destination areas should be separately considered for each type of commodity.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Metropolitan area", "Trip generation", "TRIPS architecture", "Transport engineering", "Business", "Commodity", "Chaining", "Service (business)", "Commercial vehicle", "Marketing", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 2, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "http://koreascience.or.kr:80/article/JAKO201220962918428.pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2197625542", "doi": null, "title": "Promising but challenging urban freight transport solutions : freight flow consolidation and off-hour deliveries", "year": 2015, "publication_date": "2015-01-01", "type": "dissertation", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Sara Verlinde" ], "first_author": "Sara Verlinde", "venue": "Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University)", "publisher": "Ghent University", "abstract": "Although inevitable, urban traffic causes air pollution, noise pollution and congestion. Up to 20% of urban traffic is related to freight transport and service trips and, proportionally, it contributes more to the negative side-effects of urban traffic than passenger related traffic. Throughout the past few decades, a range of solutions to reduce the negative impact of urban freight transport have been researched, tested and implemented. Two possible solutions are: freight flow consolidation and off-hour deliveries. They have two things in common. First, despite the fact that it is generally accepted that there are considerable benefits to both solutions they seem to remain permanently promising and have not been widely adopted yet. Second, they require support of both public and commercial stakeholders to be successful in the long term. The purpose of this thesis is to identify feasible, consensual and successful applications of urban freight flow consolidation and off-hour deliveries. To reach that goal a twofold approach is adopted: (i) reassessing the generally accepted logic behind freight flow consolidation and off-hour deliveries as well as their impact and (ii) evaluating both concepts and/or their applications from the perspective of all stakeholders. One possible freight flow consolidation solution is to implement an Urban Consolidation Centre (UCC). A review of the available UCC impact assessment made me conclude that 87% of UCCs have a positive impact on the number of urban freight vehicle kilometres. However, this positive impact might have to partially be put down to the lack of high-quality urban freight data and the consequent too positive estimations. Despite the dominant attention for UCCs in the literature on urban freight flow consolidation, there are alternative approaches. This thesis identifies and categorizes them and cites existing, often small-scale examples. One possible alternative approach is to use a Mobile Depot for express deliveries and pick-ups. Evaluating this concept revealed that it decreases the amount of emitted pollutants and the number of diesel vehicle kilometres but doubles the operational costs for the express service provider. The thesis also demonstrates that there is no overall stakeholder support for a general shift of urban freight flows to off-hours in Belgium. There are, however, freight flows that are more suited than others to be shifted to off-hours. My research identifies these freight flows and characterizes them. Based on this research, one particularly suited freight flow would be supermarket deliveries. Evaluating a trial that took place in Brussels revealed that there are considerable time and fuel savings when deliveries to two supermarkets in Brussels are shifted to off-hours and that this solution would be able to receive overall stakeholder support when sufficient measures are taken to keep the noise nuisance for local residents to a minimum. Finally, the thesis contributes to the research field of urban freight transport by introducing the concept of stakeholder involvement in the evaluation of urban freight transport solutions by using Multi Actor Multi Criteria Analysis which is an evaluation tool that explicitly includes the goals and objectives of all stakeholders.", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "TRIPS architecture", "Consolidation (business)", "Traffic management", "Traffic congestion", "City logistics", "Business", "Engineering", "Finance" ], "cited_by_count": 28, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/5985077" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2027489870", "doi": "10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.10.030", "title": "Implementing High Productivity Freight Vehicles in Urban Areas", "year": 2014, "publication_date": "2014-10-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Russell George Thompson", "Kim Peter Hassall" ], "first_author": "Russell George Thompson", "venue": "Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "Many urban areas are experiencing growing levels of traffic congestion and increased freight demand due to population growth, globalization and contemporary logistics systems. High Productivity Freight Vehicles (HPFVs) are large combination vehicles that offer significant benefits for lowering costs, improving safety and protecting the environment by reducing the number of truck movements in cities that would otherwise be needed. This paper describes how HPFV are being implemented in Australian urban areas within the Performance Based Standards (PBS) framework to allow better use of existing urban freight networks. PBS is a flexible non-prescription framework for regulating the weight and dimensions as well as network access of road freight vehicles. This paper presents details of case studies used to estimate the productivity gains from operating PBS vehicles in urban areas. A range of PBS vehicles have been identified as being suitable for urban freight operations including Super B-doubles and rigid trucks. This paper demonstrates how the productivity gains from PBS vehicles operating in urban areas can be estimated. The results of simulations of a number of freight networks for specific commodities are presented. The analysis presented shows that substantial benefits can be achieved by the take-up of PBS vehicles in urban freight networks. Case studies show a lowering of several key freight exposure metrics, which involve kilometres, trips, task travel times and vehicle numbers. A description of the HPFV route assessment process as well as the Intelligent Access Program (IAP) is also presented. The route assessment process is used to examine the road geometry and pavement conditions for the first and last mile access. The IAP uses the Global Position System (i.e. GPS) to monitor heavy vehicles’ compliance with access conditions.", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Truck", "Productivity", "TRIPS architecture", "Traffic congestion", "Process (computing)", "Business", "Computer science", "Engineering", "Automotive engineering", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 11, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187704281405472X/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4407743038", "doi": "10.1016/j.trd.2025.104662", "title": "Revealing the built environment impacts on truck emissions using interpretable machine learning", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-02-19", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Tongtong Shi", "Meiting Tu", "Ye Li", "Haobing Liu", "Dominique Gruyer" ], "first_author": "Tongtong Shi", "venue": "Transportation Research Part D Transport and Environment", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "Environmental science", "Engineering", "Computer science", "Automotive engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 15, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2025.104662" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2147235613", "doi": "10.3141/1941-11", "title": "Travel Characteristics of Urban Freight Vehicles and Their Effects on Emission Factors", "year": 2005, "publication_date": "2005-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Annie Protopapas", "Arun Kumar Chatterjee", "Terry L. Miller", "Jerry D. Everett" ], "first_author": "Annie Protopapas", "venue": "Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board", "publisher": "SAGE Publishing", "abstract": "This study collected local commercial vehicle data in Knox County, Tennessee, from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and two companies engaged in package pickup and delivery (PUD). Another urban commercial vehicle data set with a wider spectrum of freight companies was obtained from North Carolina for comparative analysis. The two data sets were analyzed to develop two sets of values for input parameters for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's MOBILE6 model. Statistical tests permitted four aggregated vehicle usage classes to be formed. Two runs of MOBILE6 modeled the two commercial vehicle data sets in their entirety. Four additional runs modeled each vehicle usage class individually through the use of average speed and starts per day specific to the driving pattern of each class. Differences between the values of input parameters and emission factors based on data collected by this study and those based on the default values of MOBILE6 are discussed. Commercial vehicles examined by this study indicated higher annual mileage accumulation rates than the default values. Also their vehicle miles traveled and engine start distributions by hour of day varied considerably from the default values, occurring primarily between the two daily peak traffic periods (morning and evening). The study found higher volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon monoxide (CO), and nitrogen oxide emission factors than in default runs for USPS vehicles, whose driving pattern resulted in lower-than-default average speed. Higher VOC and CO emission factors were found for gasoline and diesel package PUD vehicles due to lower-than-default average speeds and higher-than-default starts per day.", "keywords": [ "Gasoline", "Environmental science", "Diesel fuel", "Transport engineering", "Automotive engineering", "Nitrogen oxide", "Statistics", "Meteorology", "Mathematics", "Engineering", "Geography", "Waste management" ], "cited_by_count": 3, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.3141/1941-11" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4385326707", "doi": "10.2139/ssrn.4516185", "title": "The Use of Electric Cargo Bike and Cycle for Sustainable Last Mile Delivery: Optimization and Evaluation", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-01-01", "type": "preprint", "language": "en", "authors": [ "B Lee", "So Rim Han", "Byung Duk Song" ], "first_author": "B Lee", "venue": "SSRN Electronic Journal", "publisher": "RELX Group (Netherlands)", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Mile", "Last mile (transportation)", "Transport engineering", "Business", "Engineering", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4516185" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3170658350", "doi": null, "title": "Optimizing Satellite Locations for a Multi-Echelon Last Mile Distribution Network to utilize Alternative Delivery Vehicles for Last Mile Delivery", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-08-06", "type": "other", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Abhinav Goyal" ], "first_author": "Abhinav Goyal", "venue": "DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)", "publisher": "Massachusetts Institute of Technology", "abstract": "The growing urban population over the past few years has created many challenges for last mile distribution, such as traffic congestion, pollution, and lack of parking space availability. With the advent of e-commerce industry, the volumes for last mile delivery are growing consistently. As firms struggle to provide competitive delivery commitments to the end customers, they are exploring alternative delivery methods, such as drones and e-cargo bikes to navigate urban areas efficiently while addressing pollution and traffic concerns. However, range and capacity constraints associated with such alternative delivery modes restrict the operations that can be carried out with such vehicles. Hence, firms are re-designing their last mile distribution strategies to adapt to the constraints posed by these delivery modes. One such strategy is to deploy a multi-echelon distribution network, using satellite nodes near customer locations that allow for transshipment. The large conventional trucks deliver parcels to a satellite, from whereon the parcels are cross-docked into lighter vehicles (such as e-cargo bikes) which perform the final delivery. This project introduces a mixed integer linear programming model for a two-echelon delivery network, to determine the optimal count and locations of satellites for a large parcel company. The transactional data for deliveries and pickups associated with one parcel center has been used to develop and test the model. The first-tier transportation, that is from parcel center to satellites, has been designed as a location routing problem. The second-tier transportation, that is from satellites to customer delivery points, has been designed as an allocation problem. The model tries to minimize the associated costs with the satellite operation, optimizing the fixed cost of establishing a satellite against the cost of distance travelled and transit time. Traffic considerations and road network distances have been accounted for by using real road network data for distance calculations, and transit times adjusted for traffic conditions across multiple hours during the day. The model returns the count of satellites to be established, along with their respective locations and vehicle routes for first tier transportation. Finally, the model maps all the customers to their respective satellites to achieve an optimum distribution cost.", "keywords": [ "Mile", "Last mile (transportation)", "Computer science", "Satellite", "Telecommunications", "Engineering", "Geography", "Geodesy" ], "cited_by_count": 2, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126489" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W24611241", "doi": null, "title": "Parking for freight vehicles in dense urban centers - The issue of delivery areas in Paris", "year": 2015, "publication_date": "2015-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Adrien Béziat" ], "first_author": "Adrien Béziat", "venue": "Transportation Research Board 94th Annual MeetingTransportation Research Board", "publisher": null, "abstract": "Parking during operations of deliveries and pick-ups of goods is highly problematic, especially in dense urban centers. Lack of space and competition from other users of the road network result in a scarcity of available parking places, and therefore, loss of time for delivery drivers, who then tend to park illegally. To cope with the situation, one possibility for policymakers is to set aside areas specifically designated as parking spaces for delivery vehicles, such as the Paris Municipality’s delivery areas policy in France. The aim of this paper is, first, to measure the supply of parking areas for delivery vehicles in Paris. Second, the authors will estimate demand in terms of operations of deliveries and pick-ups of goods in the city of Paris, based on a generation model of freight flows, using data from the new Paris Urban Freight Survey, carried out from 2010 to 2012 by the Laboratory of Transport Economics in the region of Paris (Ile-de-France). Finally, the author will compare supply and demand, taking into account spatial and temporal distribution and the authors will analyze the supply-demand balance, according to the characteristics of delivery vehicle parking, based on the results of the Paris Urban Freight Survey (UFS).", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Scarcity", "Competition (biology)", "Business", "Truck", "Distribution (mathematics)", "City logistics", "Supply and demand", "Traffic management", "Economics", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 18, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://trid.trb.org/view/1337437" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4413963277", "doi": "10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2025.104411", "title": "Spatial patterns and community structures of urban freight: Network insights into diesel and electric truck mobility", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-09-03", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Tao Peng", "Mi Gan", "Xiaoyuan Yang", "Lifei Wei" ], "first_author": "Tao Peng", "venue": "Journal of Transport Geography", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Economic geography", "Geography", "Automotive engineering", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 4, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2025.104411" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2988306282", "doi": "10.3390/su11216088", "title": "A Simulation Study on the Potential of Moving Urban Freight by a Cross-City Railway Line", "year": 2019, "publication_date": "2019-11-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Praful Potti", "Marin Varbanov Marinov", "Edward Sweeney" ], "first_author": "Praful Potti", "venue": "Sustainability", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "This paper analyses the scope for moving urban freight through rail by evaluating the utilisation levels of the Cross-City railway line in The United Kingdom (UK), running between Lichfield Trent Valley and Birmingham New Street. A simulation model of the railway system was built and implemented using SIMUL8 computer software. The results from the simulation model suggest that the railway line is being under-utilised. These low utilisation levels of the line presented a case to propose three scenarios that has the potential to carry urban freight by rail through Lichfield Trent Valley to Birmingham New Street Station. The total number of services operated on the line is varied between different scenarios. The proposed three scenarios could not only exploit the existing railway infrastructure by improving the utilisation levels of the currently operating railway line, but also proved to reduce an amount of green-house gases (GHGs) emissions that are caused by heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) moving on the road. After simulating all the proposed scenarios in the SIMUL8 simulation software and analysing the results, scenario number 3 seemed to be the best replacement to the actual system as it presents a case to increase the number of train services running per day by in the line by 108 and causing a drastic improvement in the utilisation levels by an increase of 341.71% to that of the actual system. This proposed system has the potential to eliminate 5400 HGVs moving on the road per day that causes a reduction of CO2 gas by approximately 5.4%. All the scenarios presented in the study assures a sustainable method to move the urban freight by rail that has the potential to reduce congestion and emissions in the West Midlands region of the United Kingdom (UK).", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Scope (computer science)", "Software", "Simulation software", "Railway line", "Line (geometry)", "Engineering", "Computer science" ], "cited_by_count": 20, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/21/6088/pdf?version=1572609276" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4319786335", "doi": "10.3390/su15043091", "title": "Evaluating the Effects of Logistics Center Location: An Analytical Framework for Sustainable Urban Logistics", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-02-08", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Yanxia Wang", "Yisong Li", "Changxiang Lu" ], "first_author": "Yanxia Wang", "venue": "Sustainability", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "Sustainable urban logistics require support of sustainable logistics center location planning. Nevertheless, urban public authorities generally experience difficulties in choosing a successful planning scheme, due to the lack of a rigorous analytical tool designed to help understand how logistics center location affects sustainability throughout the supply chain. A poor location can keep a firm or a supply chain from reaching its economic, environmental, and social sustainability goals. A good location can help meet these goals. To address the pressing cause of policy failure, this paper developed an analytical framework by integrating the multi-criteria decision-making method and the shortest path model with multiple objectives. The developed framework can be used to evaluate the effects of logistics center location schemes on travel time, transport costs, carbon emission, and road traffic, and further explore the conflict level among them. It is applied to Beijing in this paper. The analysis results reveal that: (1) travel time, transport costs, and carbon emissions all vary along with the distance from logistics center location to the city center; (2) encouraging cargo companies to plan their truck paths with the navigation objective of minimizing travel time is an excellent way to achieve sustainable urban logistics, because in this scenario, freight transport is the quickest, and transport costs and carbon emissions are all more moderate. Additionally, this paper confirmed the conflict level among sustainability goals of urban logistics based on actual contextual data. The proposed framework is a helpful guide tool for urban planners to develop sustainable logistics land-use planning and responsive policy interventions.", "keywords": [ "Sustainability", "Beijing", "Business", "Supply chain", "Transport engineering", "Environmental economics", "Traffic management", "Sustainable development", "Sustainable transport", "Logistics center", "Marketing", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 24, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3091/pdf?version=1675853654" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2737615773", "doi": "10.3141/2609-07", "title": "Logistics Chain Modeling for Urban Freight", "year": 2017, "publication_date": "2017-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Takanori Sakai", "Kazuya Kawamura", "Tetsuro Hyodo" ], "first_author": "Takanori Sakai", "venue": "Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board", "publisher": "SAGE Publishing", "abstract": "In existing freight models, the choice of locations for logistics facilities and the choice of logistics facilities for routing the shipments are often treated without distinction, although these two decisions are separate and affected by different factors. In this paper, models for choosing a logistics facility are developed that match truck trip ends with logistics facilities by using a large urban freight survey data from the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The models can be used to estimate truck traffic flows associated with transshipments. The urban portion of the logistics chains was categorized into five types of movements, and 30 models were developed to analyze six commodity groups separately. The results indicated that the proposed approach could capture the mechanism of the selection of a logistics facility by movement and commodity type. The tests for the reproducibility of the models warrant the future use of the models for analysis of urban freight demand.", "keywords": [ "City logistics", "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Traffic management", "Metropolitan area", "Commodity", "Business", "Facility location problem", "Operations research", "Computer science", "Engineering", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 10, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.3141/2609-07" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2729690970", "doi": "10.1109/mdm.2017.26", "title": "Understanding and Predicting Trends in Urban Freight Transport", "year": 2017, "publication_date": "2017-05-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Petar Mrazovic", "Bahaeddin Eravcı", "Josep-L. Larriba-Pey", "Hakan Ferhatosmanoğlu", "Mihhail Matskin" ], "first_author": "Petar Mrazovic", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "Among different components of urban mobility, urban freight transport is usually considered as the least sustainable. Limited traffic infrastructures and increasing demands in dense urban regions lead to frequent delivery runs with smaller freight vehicles. This increases the traffic in urban areas and has negative impacts upon the quality of life in urban populations. Data driven optimizations are essential to better utilize existing urban transport infrastructures and to reduce the negative effects of freight deliveries for the cities. However, there is limited work and data driven research on urban delivery areas and freight transportation networks. In this paper, we collect and analyse data on urban freight deliveries and parking areas towards an optimized urban freight transportation system. Using a new check-in based mobile parking system for freight vehicles, we aim to understand and optimize freight distribution processes. We explore the relationship between areas' availability patterns and underlying traffic behaviour in order to understand the trends in urban freight transport. By applying the detected patterns we predict the availabilities of loading/unloading areas, and thus open up new possibilities for delivery route planning and better managing of freight transport infrastructures.", "keywords": [ "Traffic management", "Transport engineering", "Work (physics)", "Sustainable transport", "City logistics", "Order (exchange)", "Urban planning", "Computer science", "Business", "Sustainability", "Civil engineering", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 12, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1109/mdm.2017.26" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3000796525", "doi": "10.1155/2020/4053983", "title": "Inverting the Truck-Drone Network Problem to Find Best Case Configuration", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-01-22", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Robert Rich" ], "first_author": "Robert Rich", "venue": "Advances in Operations Research", "publisher": "Hindawi Publishing Corporation", "abstract": "Many industries are looking for ways to economically use truck/rail/ship fitted with drone technologies to augment the “last mile” delivery effort. While drone technologies abound, few, if any studies look at the proper configuration of the drone based on significant features of the problem: delivery density, operating area, drone range, and speed. Here, we first present the truck-drone problem and then invert the network routing problem such that the best case drone speed and range are fitted to the truck for a given scenario based on the network delivery density. By inverting the problem, a business can quickly determine the drone configuration (proper drone range and speed) necessary to optimize the delivery system. Additionally, we provide a more usable version of the truck-drone routing problem as a mixed integer program that can be easily adopted with standardized software used to solve linear programming. Furthermore, our computational metaheuristics and experiments conducted in support of this work are available for download. The metaheuristics used herein surpass current best-in-class algorithms found in literature.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Computer science", "USable", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Last mile (transportation)", "Metaheuristic", "Integer programming", "Range (aeronautics)", "Vehicle routing problem", "Software", "Operations research" ], "cited_by_count": 10, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/aor/2020/4053983.pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4387503553", "doi": "10.1007/s11590-023-02056-y", "title": "The truck–drone routing optimization problem: mathematical model and a VNS approach", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-10-10", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Malick Ndiaye", "Ahmed H. Osman", "Saı̈d Salhi", "Batool Madani" ], "first_author": "Malick Ndiaye", "venue": "Optimization Letters", "publisher": "Springer Science+Business Media", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Metaheuristic", "Computer science", "Variable neighborhood search", "Robustness (evolution)", "Vehicle routing problem", "Mathematical optimization", "Computational intelligence", "Linear programming", "Operations research", "Routing (electronic design automation)" ], "cited_by_count": 10, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/s11590-023-02056-y" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2279586188", "doi": "10.1016/j.trpro.2016.02.015", "title": "Quantifying the Impacts of Sustainable City Logistics Measures in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area", "year": 2016, "publication_date": "2016-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Miguel Jaller", "S. Sánchez", "Joanne Green", "Magdalena Fandiño-Del-Río" ], "first_author": "Miguel Jaller", "venue": "Transportation research procedia", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "This paper discusses the assessment of the potential impacts of a number of city logistics measures proposed for the Metropolitan Area of the Mexico City Valley: off-hour delivery programs; policies and agreements to increase cargo consolidation and decrease empty trips; and the implementation of preferential truck routes. The analyses consider the impacts on travel distances, travel times, accidents, emissions and health impacts. In doing so, the authors discuss the proposed measures, the assumptions used to estimate the impacts, and the information required. Different scenarios are evaluated for the various measures.", "keywords": [ "Metropolitan area", "TRIPS architecture", "City logistics", "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Business", "Consolidation (business)", "Environmental planning", "Geography", "Engineering", "Finance" ], "cited_by_count": 21, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trpro.2016.02.015" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4286485293", "doi": "10.1145/3524053.3542743", "title": "Drone-Truck Cooperated Delivery Under Time Varying Dynamics", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-07-21", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Arindam Khanda", "Federico Corò", "Sajal Kumar Das" ], "first_author": "Arindam Khanda", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "Rapid technological developments in autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (or drones) could soon lead to their large-scale implementation in the last-mile delivery of products. However, drones have a number of problems such as limited energy budget, limited carrying capacity, etc. On the other hand, trucks have a larger carrying capacity, but they cannot reach all the places easily. Intriguingly, last-mile delivery cooperation between drones and trucks can synergistically improve delivery efficiency.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Mile", "Last mile (transportation)", "Computer science", "Scale (ratio)", "Aeronautics", "Transport engineering", "Engineering", "Automotive engineering", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1145/3524053.3542743" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2996999140", "doi": "10.1016/j.trd.2019.102209", "title": "Comparison of energy demands of drone-based and ground-based parcel delivery services", "year": 2019, "publication_date": "2019-12-27", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Thomas Kirschstein" ], "first_author": "Thomas Kirschstein", "venue": "Transportation Research Part D Transport and Environment", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Flexibility (engineering)", "Transport engineering", "Last mile (transportation)", "Energy consumption", "Business", "Computer science", "Engineering", "Automotive engineering", "Mile" ], "cited_by_count": 262, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2019.102209" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2128469076", "doi": "10.1109/fists.2011.5973602", "title": "Integrated infomobility services for urban freight distribution", "year": 2011, "publication_date": "2011-06-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Saverio Zuccotti", "Alessio Corongiu", "Silke Forkert", "Ahmed Nasr", "Hans J. Quak", "Cristina da Silva Torres" ], "first_author": "Saverio Zuccotti", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "City logistics is one of the causes of today's road congestion in our cities, but at the same time its efficiency is affected by the traffic problems. The driving behaviour and mission strategies used by vans and lorries operating in urban areas usually does not exploit modern infomobility solutions. CityLog, a project co-funded by the European Commission within the 7thFramework Programme, aims at increasing the sustainability and the efficiency of urban goods deliveries through an adaptive and integrated mission management and by innovative vehicle features. More particularly, CityLog integrates a wide range of logistics-oriented infomobility services that include an optimized pre-trip planner, a new type of navigation system based on enhanced maps and a last mile parcel tracking service to avoid unsuccessful deliveries.", "keywords": [ "Planner", "Transport engineering", "Traffic congestion", "Sustainability", "Truck", "Service (business)", "Cover (algebra)", "Computer science", "Exploit", "City logistics", "Operations research", "Business" ], "cited_by_count": 9, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1109/fists.2011.5973602" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2046406547", "doi": "10.1109/evs.2013.6914992", "title": "Electric vehicles for urban logistics improvement", "year": 2013, "publication_date": "2013-11-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Giuseppe Napoli", "Laura Andaloro", "Francesco Sergi", "Nico Randazzo", "V. Antonucci" ], "first_author": "Giuseppe Napoli", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "The use of EVs for distribution of goods and public transportation together with the legislation that allows only to the logistic vehicles and public vehicles to access in the city center will have a large positive environmental effect on both noise level and pollution. With the progress of alternative powertrains that reduce local emissions to zero, urban buses can now throw in to decarbonising road transport. Without a doubt, a number of cities are already paying attention on cleaner public transport, while many bus operators are renewing their fleet or deploying low-emission vehicles. About goods trucks, they can drive directly into centrally placed distribution hubs where the last mile delivery to the shops is made with smaller EVs driving predefined routes. This approach can potentially increase the utilization of the last-mile delivery vehicles and thereby reduce their number causing lowering distribution costs. Within the i-NEXT project (Innovation for Green Energy and eXchange in Transportation) CNR TAE Institute is involved in infrastructure, logistic and vehicle development with the aim to reduce the impact of transportation on the cities and touristic areas. The proposed project, according to the European Union action plan on urban mobility, aims to support innovation in transport, by promoting a system based on sustainable mobility and RES (Renewable Energy Sources), and by acting simultaneously on improving logistics and distribution channels. The goal of the project is to create next practice solutions, offer promising opportunities for urban logistics operations, in order to become both more efficient and more environmentally sustainable.", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Public transport", "Sustainable transport", "Last mile (transportation)", "Truck", "Business", "Environmental economics", "City logistics", "Renewable energy", "Distribution (mathematics)", "European union", "Noise pollution" ], "cited_by_count": 8, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1109/evs.2013.6914992" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4386157309", "doi": "10.36501/0197-9191/23-014", "title": "Analysis of Drone-based Last-mile Delivery Systems under Aerial Congestion: A Continuum Approximation Approach", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-08-01", "type": "report", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Ruifeng She", "Yanfeng Ouyang" ], "first_author": "Ruifeng She", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "This paper presents a systematic analysis and design framework for a spectrum of last-mile delivery systems that leverage unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Four distinct modes are considered: (1) direct drone deliveries from a fixed depot; (2) drone deliveries from parked trucks that carry bulk parcels to customer neighborhoods; (3) drone deliveries from nonstopping trucks that tour customer neighborhoods; and (4) as a benchmark, traditional truck-based home deliveries. We present a new continuum-approximation approach that is used for analysis of both truck routing and aerial-UAV traffic. We compared the operational cost and efficiency of different delivery schemes to reveal how a certain scheme is the most efficient under various scenarios. We demonstrate the applicability of our model on expansive real-world roadway networks and further conduct analysis on grid networks, yielding key analytical insights. The drone-based delivery is demonstrated to be superior to conventional truck-only delivery, suggesting a significant potential for socioeconomic benefit. It is observed that when servicing a relatively low demand over a small area, dispatching drones directly from the distribution facility is the most efficient method. As the demand grows or spans a wider area, collaborative strategies are preferred, as they better cope with certain aspects, such as the long line-haul cost or the ramping aerial congestion, by striking a balance between efficiency and flexibility.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Last mile (transportation)", "Computer science", "Transport engineering", "Grid", "Operations research", "Computer network", "Mile", "Engineering", "Geography", "Automotive engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.36501/0197-9191/23-014" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3197822827", "doi": "10.3390/en14185677", "title": "Unloading Bays as Charging Stations for EFV-Based Urban Freight Delivery System—Example of Szczecin", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-09-09", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Stanisław Iwan", "Mariusz Nürnberg", "Artur Bejger", "Kinga Kijewska", "Krzysztof Małecki" ], "first_author": "Stanisław Iwan", "venue": "Energies", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "The problem of urban logistics operations in the context of their impact on the environment has become the key challenge. Due to that, there has been a growing interest in increasing the use of alternative fuels, including electro-mobility. However, an important barrier to the utilisation of electric freight vehicles (EFVs) is their travel range and battery capacity. The paper is focused on the idea of EFV utilisation improvement by implementation of charging stations in unloading bays. First, the Authors analysed the efficiency of chosen vehicles during daily work. Next, the potential improvement of their travel range was analysed, considering the short-time charging processes carried out during delivery operations, using the charging systems provided in unloading bays. Moreover, the concept of wireless chargers utilisation was proposed as a challenge for future work. According to the analysis, utilisation of unloading bays equipped with short-time battery chargers could improve significantly the travel range of EFVs. As a result, it could improve the efficiency of electric vehicles in last mile deliveries in city areas.", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Work (physics)", "Context (archaeology)", "Battery (electricity)", "Battery capacity", "Range (aeronautics)", "Last mile (transportation)", "Environmental science", "Automotive engineering", "Engineering", "Mile", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 12, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/18/5677/pdf?version=1631269075" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W1503965725", "doi": "10.1016/s1474-6670(17)38146-6", "title": "How to Change Urban Traffic with City Logistics", "year": 2000, "publication_date": "2000-06-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Uwe Köhler" ], "first_author": "Uwe Köhler", "venue": "IFAC Proceedings Volumes", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "City logistics", "Traffic management", "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Scheduling (production processes)", "Vehicle routing problem", "Business", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Operations research", "Computer science", "Engineering", "Operations management" ], "cited_by_count": 13, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/s1474-6670(17)38146-6" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4382983358", "doi": "10.1177/03611981231176812", "title": "Adopting a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach to Identify Barriers to Electrification of Urban Freight in India", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-07-02", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Aditya Saxena", "Ankit Kumar Yadav" ], "first_author": "Aditya Saxena", "venue": "Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board", "publisher": "SAGE Publishing", "abstract": "The economics and social development of cities depend heavily on urban freight. But, despite its obvious benefits, freight transportation has substantial negative externalities. The electrification of urban freight could help mitigate these. However, there exists a paucity of literature on barriers to the adoption of electric freight in the context of developing countries such as India. The present study intends to bridge this gap. It aims to identify the barriers to the adoption of electric freight vehicles (light commercial vehicles) in urban areas by using a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP), a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) technique. Based on the opinion of 32 experts, it was found that high capital costs, low driving range, and long charging times are the major obstacles to the adoption of electric freight vehicles in India. The results from the present study will assist government officials in identifying bottlenecks and prioritizing strategies for the promotion of electric freight vehicles in India.", "keywords": [ "Electrification", "Transport engineering", "Business", "Multiple-criteria decision analysis", "Context (archaeology)", "Promotion (chess)", "Externality", "Government (linguistics)", "Analytic hierarchy process", "Traffic management", "Environmental economics", "Electricity" ], "cited_by_count": 19, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1177/03611981231176812" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4391578106", "doi": "10.1016/j.cie.2024.109963", "title": "Pseudo node insertion method for synchronization in drone–truck combined operations", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-02-06", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Sung Hoon Chung", "Bhawesh Sah", "Jinkun Lee" ], "first_author": "Sung Hoon Chung", "venue": "Computers & Industrial Engineering", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Node (physics)", "Computer science", "Synchronization (alternating current)", "Point (geometry)", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Real-time computing", "Simulation", "Engineering", "Computer network", "Automotive engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 10, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2024.109963" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W1851775767", "doi": null, "title": "CITY-LOGISTICS - SOLUTIONS FOR URBAN COMMERCIAL TRANSPORT BY COOPERATIVE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT", "year": 1994, "publication_date": "1994-06-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Wilfried Ruske" ], "first_author": "Wilfried Ruske", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "Supplying different locations, especially in inner cities, is now only possible with smaller vehicles and often only at particular times. Moreover, freight traffic obstructs itself and the other road users by causing congestions through loading and unloading in the streets. This causes safety problems and impacts street traffic with noise and exhaust. Patent remedies are at hand: to shift freight traffic to the railways, establishing separate lorry routes in the cities, avoiding dead freight and make better use of the capability of lorries, using logistics and establishing Freight Traffic Centres. But the basic situations and the possible developments - neither in detail nor on a larger scale - are known or have been explored. Often the ideas of commercial transport or the design or shape of city logistics do vary considerably.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Traffic management", "Transport engineering", "City logistics", "Business", "Scale (ratio)", "Engineering", "Automotive engineering", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 15, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://trid.trb.org/view/414905" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4400383829", "doi": "10.1016/j.tre.2024.103657", "title": "Mobility heterogeneity of urban freight areas: Geospatial evidence from shared logistics dynamics", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-07-06", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Zidong Yu", "Haotian Wang", "Xintao Liu" ], "first_author": "Zidong Yu", "venue": "Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Geospatial analysis", "Transport engineering", "City logistics", "Business", "Economic geography", "Geography", "Engineering", "Remote sensing" ], "cited_by_count": 19, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2024.103657" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4295860526", "doi": "10.2139/ssrn.4189367", "title": "Hybrid Truck-Drone Delivery Under Aerial Traffic Congestion", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-01-01", "type": "preprint", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Ruifeng She", "Yanfeng Ouyang" ], "first_author": "Ruifeng She", "venue": "SSRN Electronic Journal", "publisher": "RELX Group (Netherlands)", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Traffic congestion", "Transport engineering", "Computer science", "Aeronautics", "Automotive engineering", "Engineering", "Biology" ], "cited_by_count": 8, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4189367" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4284966171", "doi": "10.1016/j.trip.2022.100650", "title": "Vulnerable road user safety and freight vehicles: A case study in North Carolina and Tennessee", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-07-08", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Jueyu Wang", "Saurav Parajuli", "Christopher Cherry", "Noreen McDonald", "Torrey Lyons" ], "first_author": "Jueyu Wang", "venue": "Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "Increasing freight traffic has posed greater road safety threats to Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs), including pedestrians and bicyclists, in urban communities. Although there are some disaggregated studies on truck-related crashes, the literature offers limited knowledge of how crash-level factors influence crashes related to urban freight. Our study uses crash data from North Carolina (2007–2019) and Tennessee (2009–2019) to explore the relationship between the crash-level factors and the occurrence and injury severity of crashes involving freight vehicles and VRUs. Crash-level factors include socio-demographics of VRUs and freight vehicle drivers, driving behaviors, temporal and weather effects, and environmental factors. The results indicate that freight-related VRU crashes, compared to nonfreight-related VRU crashes, are more likely to occur at private properties and parking areas and have a higher probability of causing severe injuries or deaths. The results also show that the involvement of larger vehicles and the occurrence at midblock segments are positively associated with more severe injury outcomes. The research results could help community and transport designers to increase attention to the safety impacts of growing freight traffic in urban communities.", "keywords": [ "Crash", "Transport engineering", "Demographics", "Truck", "Poison control", "Occupational safety and health", "Injury prevention", "Human factors and ergonomics", "Geography", "Business", "Environmental health", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 15, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198222001117/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4404241273", "doi": "10.21203/rs.3.rs-5227590/v1", "title": "Efficient Last-Mile Delivery in the Pharmaceutical Sector: A Novel Approach for Vehicle Routing with Smart Parcel Lockers", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-11-11", "type": "preprint", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Reyhaneh Shafiei Aghdam", "Mohsen Akbarpour Shirazi", "Behrooz Karimi" ], "first_author": "Reyhaneh Shafiei Aghdam", "venue": "Research Square", "publisher": null, "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Last mile (transportation)", "Mile", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Computer science", "Business", "Transport engineering", "Engineering", "Computer network", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5227590/v1" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4392133436", "doi": "10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2024.103822", "title": "Quantifying the overall spatial distribution characteristics of urban heavy truck trips: The case of China", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-02-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Ying-Yue Lv", "Xiao-Yong Yan", "Bin Jia", "Yitao Yang", "Erjian Liu" ], "first_author": "Ying-Yue Lv", "venue": "Journal of Transport Geography", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "TRIPS architecture", "Transport engineering", "Centrality", "China", "Distribution (mathematics)", "Megacity", "Index (typography)", "Geography", "Computer science", "Engineering", "Statistics" ], "cited_by_count": 12, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2024.103822" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2126348954", "doi": null, "title": "On the necessary conditions for off-hour deliveries and the effectiveness of urban freight road pricing and alternative financial policies", "year": 2007, "publication_date": "2007-01-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "José Holguín‐Veras" ], "first_author": "José Holguín‐Veras", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "This paper attempts to put together a comprehensive picture of the economic conditions needed for both carriers and receivers to make and accept deliveries outside the regular business hours (off-hour deliveries). This is accomplished by obtaining the general form of the necessary economic conditions that would make urban off-hour deliveries feasible. These necessary conditions were modified so that they become the particular forms of three key policies: freight road pricing combined with financial incentives to receivers willing to accept off-hour deliveries, only freight road pricing, and laissez faire conditions (neither freight road pricing, nor financial incentives). Two cases of industry structure are considered: independent operations (in which carrier and receivers are separate companies each independently trying to maximize profits) and integrated operations (in which carrier and receiver are part of the same company). The analyses of the necessary conditions for these policies indicate that the most potent stimulus is provided by freight road pricing in combination with financial incentives. This is followed by freight road pricing and laissez faire conditions. Using real life cost estimates, the paper concludes that neither freight road pricing by itself, nor laissez faire, are likely to achieve the desired goal of inducing a significant switch of truck traffic to the off-hours. This paper has attempted to put together a comprehensive picture of the necessary conditions required for receivers and carriers to agree to do off-hour deliveries. This has been accomplished using economic principles. The used of these techniques has enabled to obtain the set of necessary conditions that would make off-hour deliveries feasible. These necessary conditions were modified so that they represent three key policies: freight road pricing combined with financial incentives to receivers willing to accept off-hour deliveries, only freight road pricing, and laissez faire conditions (neither freight road pricing, nor financial incentives). Two major cases have been considered: independent and integrated carrier-receiver operations. It was found that integrated operations are significantly different than independent operations. This is because what really matters in this case are the impacts on the combined operation, as opposed to the impacts on each agent. This translates into a centralized decision making process that enables the decision maker to implement all-or-nothing alternatives, by which all deliveries or none at all are moved to the off-hours. As a result, integrated operations can take full advantage of the type of operation most beneficial to them and avoid the kind of cost duplications that arise in the case of independent operations. The analyses of the necessary conditions for the three policies considered indicate that the most potent stimuli is provided by freight road pricing in combination with financial incentives. This is followed by freight road pricing and laissez faire conditions. Using real life cost estimates, the paper concludes that neither freight road pricing by itself, nor laissez faire are likely to achieve the desired goal of moving trucks to the off-hours. For the covering abstract see ITRD E137145.", "keywords": [ "Incentive", "Road pricing", "Truck", "Business", "Finance", "Transport engineering", "Economics", "Microeconomics", "Traffic congestion", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 22, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://trid.trb.org/view/855516" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3015058456", "doi": "10.3390/su12072850", "title": "The Role of ‘Influencers’ as Drivers of a More Sustainable Urban Freight Sector", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-04-03", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Alena Brettmo", "Jon Williamsson" ], "first_author": "Alena Brettmo", "venue": "Sustainability", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "The importance of stakeholders in the development of a sustainable urban freight sector has been highlighted in recent research. Not all stakeholders have a direct link to the supply chain, but they may still play a role in creating sustainable urban freight initiatives. This study explores the initiatives that norm-setting indirect stakeholders in urban freight, referred to as ‘influencers’, establish to support a more sustainable urban freight sector, and how those initiatives may impact the business models of carriers. The study uses data gathered for ongoing research into the roles of indirect stakeholders in the development of sustainable urban freight initiatives. The results indicate that influencers can put pressure on receivers regarding logistical issues and shape the physical environment in which deliveries are conducted. Influencers use three primary strategies to support sustainable urban freight: vehicle-focused measures, consolidation linked to physical infrastructure, and consolidation through behavioural changes. These initiatives impact the relationship between receivers and carriers and may push carriers to adopt more sustainable practices as well as take decisions that impact their business models. The results highlight the often-overlooked power of influencers in relation to the development of actor behaviour in the urban freight supply chain and show the potential for both conflict and change arising from the use of this power.", "keywords": [ "Business", "Influencer marketing", "Supply chain", "Consolidation (business)", "Sustainable development", "Sustainability", "City logistics", "Marketing", "Environmental planning", "Environmental economics", "Transport engineering", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 14, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/7/2850/pdf?version=1585911480" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4388596637", "doi": "10.1007/s10732-023-09520-z", "title": "A hybrid variable neighborhood search heuristic for the sustainable time-dependent truck-drone routing problem with rendezvous locations", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-11-11", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Ebrahim Teimoury", "Reza Rashid" ], "first_author": "Ebrahim Teimoury", "venue": "Journal of Heuristics", "publisher": "Springer Science+Business Media", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Travelling salesman problem", "Rendezvous", "Computer science", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Heuristic", "Vehicle routing problem", "Variable (mathematics)", "Variable neighborhood search", "Operations research", "Transport engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 18, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/s10732-023-09520-z" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4416074145", "doi": "10.3390/su172210041", "title": "A Two-Stage Optimization of Hybrid Truck–Robot Delivery for Sustainable Urban Logistics", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-11-10", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Sang-Myeong Kim", "Jae‐Dong Son" ], "first_author": "Sang-Myeong Kim", "venue": "Sustainability", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "This study addresses the operational and environmental pressures of last-mile delivery in dense cities under limited urban logistics hubs. We propose a resource-efficient framework that repurposes existing convenience stores as robotic delivery hubs and formalize its operation via a two-stage optimization coupling truck and robot routing. In controlled simulations, and in a Seoul street network scenario, the approach reduces total completion time relative to a truck-only benchmark and lowers truck activity (truck-kilometers and curb idling), leading to lower estimated CO2e under standard emission factors. We also observe a nonlinear relationship between the number of hubs and efficiency, suggesting a coverage “sweet spot”. These results indicate that with minimal new infrastructure, reusing commercial assets can improve operational performance and environmental proxies; social and labor outcomes are not measured here and are left for future field evaluation.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Benchmark (surveying)", "Reuse", "City logistics", "Sustainability", "Robot", "Field (mathematics)", "Coupling (piping)", "Optimization problem" ], "cited_by_count": 2, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/22/10041/pdf?version=1762784573" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2972375682", "doi": "10.2991/eusflat-19.2019.110", "title": "Prioritizing the Strategies to Enhance Smart City Logistics by Intuitionistic Fuzzy CODAS", "year": 2019, "publication_date": "2019-01-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Gülçin Büyüközkan", "Fethullah Göçer" ], "first_author": "Gülçin Büyüközkan", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "Accurate, well-timed, and efficient delivery operations is a must for supply chains and logistics providers' survival in a digitally enhanced business environment.Sustainability, mobility and livability related objectives of Smart City Logistics (SCL) address the reduction of trucks, congestion and pollution.In order to accomplish this objective, all stakeholders must work together.In addition to strong collaboration among cities, supply chains, and logistics providers, digital enablers can resolve traditional challenges in last-mile logistics for sustainable, mobile and livable cities.While the approaches to enhance SCL are in abundance, prioritizing suitable SCL strategies is a non-trivial task.In order to improve the SCL and evaluate the required strategies, this paper develops a decisionmaking model based on the Combinative Distance Based Assessment (CODAS) under Intuitionistic Fuzzy (IF) setting and carries out a pioneering study to determine and prioritize the required SCL strategies.It proposes a new approach to support the claim, and analyzes the SCL for the evaluation system.Then, selection criteria are established to define SCL strategies and to develop a method based on IF CODAS and the prospect theory.Finally, the advantages, disadvantages, as well as the limitations of the proposed method are discussed.This study is one of the pioneering research with empirical contributions to the existing vastly conceptual discussion.", "keywords": [ "Computer science", "Fuzzy logic", "Smart city", "Business", "Artificial intelligence", "Internet of Things", "Computer security" ], "cited_by_count": 18, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/125914880.pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4413705309", "doi": "10.3233/atde250526", "title": "Crowdsourcing Technology Innovation for Last Mile Delivery Based on Routing Clusters and Flight Ranges Using Simulated Annealing", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-08-26", "type": "book-chapter", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Pipit Sari Puspitorini", "Suparno Suparno", "Niniet Indah Arvitrida" ], "first_author": "Pipit Sari Puspitorini", "venue": "Advances in transdisciplinary engineering", "publisher": "IOS Press", "abstract": "Crowdsourcing clustering is a strategic decision for partitioning delivery locations into small clusters where the rendezvous point is a launching point (centroid cluster). Crowdsourcing is a resource owned by third-party logistics (3PL) that consists of drone trucks and crowd agents. The main objectives of this study are (i) to develop a mathematical model for optimal clustering and (ii) to determine the routing of package delivery using drones and trucks. To optimize the cluster, we used simulated annealing (SA). SA is a part of the metaheuristic algorithms, which are well-known unsupervised machine learning algorithms. For instance, we used 100 datasets of customer location data to conduct experiments, and the silhouette index was used to validate the proposed model. The novelty of this study lies in the closed-form mathematical solutions for optimal crowdsourcing in delivery considering the delivery range and weight of the package. The brief of this study is to adjudicate (i) a mathematical model of the optimal number of clusters using a power function without overlapping clusters and, (ii) partition routing crowdsourcing to assist delivery by considering range and vehicle capacity.", "keywords": [ "Crowdsourcing", "Last mile (transportation)", "Mile", "Simulated annealing", "Annealing (glass)", "Materials science", "Environmental science", "Computer science", "Geography", "World Wide Web", "Metallurgy", "Machine learning" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.3233/atde250526" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3166923919", "doi": "10.7922/g22n50jj", "title": "Fighting for Curb Space: Parking, Ride-Hailing, Urban Freight Deliveries, and Other Users", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-01-01", "type": "preprint", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Miguel Jaller" ], "first_author": "Miguel Jaller", "venue": "RePEc: Research Papers in Economics", "publisher": "Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis", "abstract": "There is a need to optimally allocate curb space-one of the scarcest resources in urban areas-to the different and growing needs of passenger and freight transport. Although there are plenty of linear miles of curbside space in every city, the growing adoption of ride-hailing services and the rise of e-commerce with its residential deliveries, and the increased number of micro-mobility services, have increased pressure on the already saturated transportation system. Traditional curbside planning strategies have relied on land-use based demand estimates to allocate access priority to the curb (e.g., pedestrian and transit for residential areas, commercial vehicles for commercial and industrial zones). In some locales, new guidelines provide ideas on flexible curbside management, but lack the systems to gather and analyze the data, and optimally and dynamically allocate the space to the different users and needs. This study conducted a comprehensive literature review on several topics related to curb space management, discussing various users (e.g., pedestrians, bicycles, transit, taxis, and commercial freight vehicles), summarizing different experiences, and focusing the discussion on Complete Street strategies. Moreover, the authors reviewed the academic literature on curbside and parking data collection, and simulation and optimization techniques. Considering a case study around the downtown area in San Francisco, the authors evaluated the performance of the system with respect to a number of parking behavior scenarios. In doing so, the authors developed a parking simulation in SUMO following a set of parking behaviors (e.g., parking search, parking with off-street parking information availability, double-parking). These scenarios were tested in three different (land use-based) sub-study areas representing residential, commercial and mixed-use.View the NCST Project Webpage", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Space (punctuation)", "Downtown", "Taxis", "Pedestrian", "Parking space", "Business", "Operations research", "Computer science", "Engineering", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 19, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.7922/g22n50jj" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3121017033", "doi": "10.1016/j.trb.2020.11.011", "title": "A branch-and-cut algorithm for the vehicle routing problem with drones", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-01-13", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Felix Tamke", "Udo Buscher" ], "first_author": "Felix Tamke", "venue": "Transportation Research Part B Methodological", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Drone", "Computer science", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Mathematical optimization", "Branch and cut", "Linear programming", "Range (aeronautics)", "Flexibility (engineering)", "Integer programming", "Vehicle routing problem", "Lagrangian relaxation", "Linear programming relaxation" ], "cited_by_count": 201, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trb.2020.11.011" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4408596724", "doi": "10.1016/j.tre.2025.104087", "title": "Assessing the resilience of urban truck transport networks under the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of China", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-03-20", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Yitao Yang", "Erjian Liu", "Yan Chen", "Xin Meng", "Ting Wang", "Hui Wang", "Danyue Zhi", "Dongdong Song", "Hao Wang" ], "first_author": "Yitao Yang", "venue": "Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)", "Truck", "Pandemic", "2019-20 coronavirus outbreak", "China", "Resilience (materials science)", "Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)", "Transport engineering", "Business", "Geography", "Engineering", "Virology" ], "cited_by_count": 16, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2025.104087" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2468196328", "doi": "10.1016/j.trpro.2016.05.116", "title": "Perception and Control Strategies for Autonomous Docking for Electric Freight Vehicles", "year": 2016, "publication_date": "2016-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Leopoldo Gonzalez Clarembaux", "Joshué Perez", "David González", "Fawzi Nashashibi" ], "first_author": "Leopoldo Gonzalez Clarembaux", "venue": "Transportation research procedia", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "The freight transportation is defined as the process of carrying goods and persons from one given point to another. Recently, urban freight transportations have been used as an alternative for the delivery problems of goods in urban environments. The present work is developed in the framework of the Furbot project (FP7), which presents a solution for future urban freight transports with new light-duty architecture, based on full-electrical vehicles. This paper is focused on the onboard intelligent units, dedicated to improve the perception and control systems for the parking/docking process. The results presented in this work will show the good behavior of our approach, which will be implemented in the FURBOT vehicle (www.furbot.com).", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Architecture", "Process (computing)", "Engineering", "Perception", "Work (physics)", "Traffic management", "Control (management)", "Computer science", "Artificial intelligence" ], "cited_by_count": 11, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trpro.2016.05.116" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2085994869", "doi": "10.1108/eb014443", "title": "Institutional Issues in Urban Freight Consolidation", "year": 1979, "publication_date": "1979-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Ernest R. Cadotte", "Robert A. Robicheaux" ], "first_author": "Ernest R. Cadotte", "venue": "International Journal of Physical Distribution & Materials Management", "publisher": "Emerald Publishing Limited", "abstract": "The distribution of freight in most urban areas is characterised by high concentrations of truck activity in central business districts (CBD's). In this context, the movement of freight from suppliers, to resellers to ultimate customers is typically performed by a very large number of small carriers who duplicate each other's paths with partially filled trucks while each is in the process of picking up and delivering a large number of very small shipments. In many communities, this distribution structure results in unnecessarily high levels of congestion, pollution and energy consumption, as well as high distribution costs which are passed on to consumers in higher product costs. Several decades ago, business organisations responded to these pressures and initiated shippers' associations and freight forwarder operations to achieve the economies of consolidated shipments. Since 1942, however, the growth in the number of freight forwarders has been drastically curtailed.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Business", "Forwarder", "Consolidation (business)", "Distribution (mathematics)", "Transport engineering", "Context (archaeology)", "Product (mathematics)", "Traffic management", "Industrial organization", "Finance", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 8, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1108/eb014443" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2080710001", "doi": "10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.10.006", "title": "A Socio-economic Analysis of Harmonizing the Dimensions of Lorries and Loading Docks in Norwegian Cities – Costs, BenefIts and Logistic Efficiency", "year": 2014, "publication_date": "2014-10-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Olav Eidhammer", "Jardar Andersen" ], "first_author": "Olav Eidhammer", "venue": "Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "In several Norwegian cities there exists the potential for increasing the efficiency of cargo deliveries by reducing the time spent on loading and unloading for each delivery. As Norway lacks regulations harmonizing the dimensions of lorries to the dimensions of loading docks, drivers are often forced to load and unload their cargo on-street instead of onto loading docks. On-street unloading leads to increased walking distances for drivers, which increases time spent unloading the delivery and thus the delivery cost. In addition, on-street unloading may affect other road users such as pedestrians, cyclists, cars and public transportation. Harmonization of the dimensions of lorries and loading docks could therefore potentially reduce both delivery costs and external effects. This paper looks into a methodological framework for social cost benefit-analyses of harmonizing the dimensions of lorries and loading docks in urban areas. The framework is universal in the sense that it is valid and can be used for evaluations of measures in different cities, however it is based on local data. The innovative part is that the adapted cost benefit-analyses methodology is used on measures connected to urban freight distribution. Another innovative aspect of using the social cost-benefit methodology is the effects of measures quantified in monetary terms. This makes it possible to rank measures tested and evaluated. The framework is tested on scenarios of current interest to be implemented by using data from the central parts of Oslo, limited by the orbital road, Ring 2. Estimations are made using four scenarios; two for estimating the effects of lorry size restrictions, and two focusing on dimensioning of loading docks. The study revealed a lack of relevant data, especially as regards loading docks. The framework can be used for similar analyses in other city areas, based on local data. An important recommendation for improving the quality of future analyses is to ensure data collection from concrete actions directed at cargo distribution in city areas.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Norwegian", "Social cost", "Harmonization", "Business", "Computer science", "Engineering", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 6, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814054482/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2041430124", "doi": "10.1080/12265934.2014.929020", "title": "Multi-agent systems modelling approach to evaluate urban motorways for city logistics", "year": 2014, "publication_date": "2014-05-04", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Joel S.E. Teo", "E Taniguchi", "Ali Gul Qureshi" ], "first_author": "Joel S.E. Teo", "venue": "International Journal of Urban Sciences", "publisher": "Taylor & Francis", "abstract": "Government road authorities are constantly faced with the challenges of urbanization and traffic congestion requiring them to make good decisions for infrastructure developments. Several developed and developing countries have focused their concerns on building motorways for private and public transports for intercity connectivity and economic growth in the past. However, very few evaluation models were concerned about urban motorways for the benefit of urban freight transport. There may not even be an evaluation model for urban motorways development, which has considered the routing behaviour of truck movements in urban areas, especially if the main purpose for the urban motorway is for improving city logistics. Faced with the problems and concerns of the road authorities in Japan regarding capacity increase measures or other freight management schemes, this paper is an initial step to explore and provide the methodology to support the road authorities in their decision for urban motorway alternatives.", "keywords": [ "Urbanization", "Transport engineering", "Truck", "Traffic congestion", "Government (linguistics)", "Business", "Urban planning", "Public transport", "City logistics", "Environmental planning", "Civil engineering", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 15, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1080/12265934.2014.929020" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W640140407", "doi": null, "title": "Freight Distribution in Urban Areas: The role of supply chain alliances in addressing the challenge of traffic congestion for city logistics", "year": 2004, "publication_date": "2004-02-01", "type": "report", "language": "en", "authors": [ "David A. Hensher", "Sean M. Puckett" ], "first_author": "David A. Hensher", "venue": "The Sydney eScholarship Repository (The University of Sydney)", "publisher": "The University of Sydney", "abstract": "The distribution of freight is a major contributor to the levels of traffic congestion in cities, yet it is much neglected in the research and planning activities of government, where the focus is disproportionately on passenger vehicle movements. Despite the recent recognition of the contribution of freight transportation to the performance of urban areas under the rubric of city logistics, we see a void in the study of how the stakeholders in the supply chain associated with the distribution of goods (whose destination is an urban location) might cooperate through participation in distribution networks, to reduce the costs associated with traffic congestion. Given that transport costs are typically over 45% of all distribution costs, with congestion contributing a substantial amount of cost in the urban setting, the importance of establishing ways in which supply chain partnerships might aid in reducing the levels of freight vehicle movements in urban areas has much merit. This paper sets out a framework to investigate how agents in the supply chain might interact more effectively to reduce their costs of urban freight distribution. We propose an interactive agency choice method as a way of formalising a framework for studying the preferences of participants in the supply chain to support specific policy initiatives. Such a framework is a powerful way of investigating the behavioural response of each agent to many policies including congestion pricing as a way of improving the efficient flow of traffic in cities.", "keywords": [ "Supply chain", "Business", "Distribution (mathematics)", "Traffic congestion", "Transport engineering", "Rubric", "City logistics", "Agency (philosophy)", "Industrial organization", "Environmental economics", "Marketing", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 23, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "http://hdl.handle.net/2123/19275" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3038567675", "doi": "10.22306/al.v7i2.172", "title": "IMPLEMENTING CIRCULAR ECONOMY CONCEPTS FOR SUSTAINABLE URBAN FREIGHT TRANSPORT: CASE OF TEXTILE MANUFACTURING SUPPLY CHAIN", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-06-30", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Bhavesh Dhonde", "Chetan R. Patel" ], "first_author": "Bhavesh Dhonde", "venue": "Acta Logistica", "publisher": "4S go, s.r.o.", "abstract": "Rapid industrialization and mass urbanization have generated a challenging situation for the city's planners and managers to maintain a balance between economic development and a sustainable environment for its inhabitants.Circular economy concepts can offer a unique opportunity to decouple growth from resource requirements.At the core of the circular economy, is the proposition of complete elimination of waste -i.e.waste not in its traditional sense, but any form of underutilization of assets and resources.A case study of the textile manufacturing industry in Surat, India is taken to compare the performances of traditional supply chain processes and the advantages of adopting circular economy concepts.Temporal sprawl of the textile industry is used to find the changes in trip lengths of urban freight trips over the last two decades.For estimating freight trips volume and patterns, roadside interviews of freight vehicles and establishment surveys of manufacturing and trading units were conducted.Overall urban freight transport contribution from the textile industry is estimated by modelling field data.Organized trip planning and optimized utilization of payload capacities can reduce vehicular emission generated from commercial goods movement in the textile industry to 2/3 rd of its current levels.The paper asserts reinforces that the integration of circular economy principles with supply chain processes is beneficial from sustainability as well as a business point of view.The congestion mitigation due to the reduced number of trips offers a further reduction in the overall traffic emissions due to better traffic flows on the city's road network.", "keywords": [ "Supply chain", "Textile", "Circular economy", "Business", "Industrial organization", "Commerce", "Geography", "Marketing" ], "cited_by_count": 21, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.22306/al.v7i2.172" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4386070923", "doi": "10.1016/j.ijtst.2023.08.005", "title": "Modeling freight truck-related traffic crash hazards with uncertainties: A framework of interpretable Bayesian neural network with stochastic variational inference", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-08-22", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Quan Yuan", "Haocheng Lin", "Chengcheng Yu", "Chao Yang" ], "first_author": "Quan Yuan", "venue": "International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "Due to the increasing demand for goods movement, externalities from freight mobility have attracted much concern among local citizens and policymakers. Freight truck-related crash is one of these externalities and impacts urban freight transportation most drastically. Previous studies have mainly focused on correlation analysis of influencing factors based on crash density/count data but have paid little attention to the inherent uncertainty of freight truck-related crashes from a spatial perspective. While establishing an interpretable analysis model for freight truck-related accidents that considers uncertainty is of great significance for promoting the robust development of urban freight transportation systems. Hence, this study proposes the concept of freight truck-related crash hazard (FTCH) and employs the Bayesian neural network model based on stochastic variational inference to model uncertainty. Considering the difficulty of interpreting deep learning-based models, this study introduces the LIME model into the analysis framework to explain the results of the neural network model. This study then verifies the feasibility of the proposed analysis framework using data from California from 2011 to 2020. Results show that FTCHs can be effectively modeled by predicting confidence intervals for effects of built environment factors, in particular demographics, land use, and road network structure. Results based on LIME values indicate the spatial heterogeneity in influence mechanisms on FTCHs between areas within the metropolitan regions and alongside the freeways. These findings may help transport planners and logistic managers develop more effective measures to avoid potential negative effects brought by freight truck-related crash hazards in local communities.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Crash", "Transport engineering", "Bayesian inference", "Metropolitan area", "Externality", "Hazard", "Inference", "Computer science", "Bayesian probability", "Transshipment (information security)", "Econometrics" ], "cited_by_count": 18, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2023.08.005" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4232801595", "doi": "10.1504/writr.2020.106450", "title": "Analysis of the attributes to decision-making process of the urban freight vehicle choice for Brazilian scenario", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Larissa Almeida Matias de Lima Batista", "Lara Braide Rocha", "Bruno Vieira Bertoncini", "Leise Kelli de Oliveira" ], "first_author": "Larissa Almeida Matias de Lima Batista", "venue": "World Review of Intermodal Transportation Research", "publisher": "Inderscience Publishers", "abstract": "The largest cities in Brazil are experiencing a crisis in their urban mobility model. It increases the complexity of the urban distribution process, which requires a considerable effort in decisions such as vehicular choice for urban freight transport. Some attributes might influence the commercial vehicle choice by the decision makers, and they may be related to aspects of the vehicle, the cargo, the delivery area, the freight vehicle restrictions and the requirements from the operation. Recognising this challenge, the key attributes that influence the urban freight vehicle choice were identified through a systematic literature review and their adherence to the Brazilian reality was evaluated through a survey. Also, a stated preference survey was carried out to measure the relationship between decisions on the choice of commercial vehicular mode and the main attributes in this process. The results could support urban transport planners in the development of effective public policies.", "keywords": [ "Preference", "Process (computing)", "Transport engineering", "City logistics", "Mode choice", "Mode (computer interface)", "Business", "Traffic management", "Public transport", "Revealed preference", "Choice modelling", "Decision-making" ], "cited_by_count": 3, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1504/writr.2020.106450" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W1992256813", "doi": "10.1080/12265934.2014.928601", "title": "City logistics long-term planning: simulation of shopping mobility and goods restocking and related support systems", "year": 2014, "publication_date": "2014-05-04", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Agostino Nuzzolo", "Antonio Comi", "Luca Rosati" ], "first_author": "Agostino Nuzzolo", "venue": "International Journal of Urban Sciences", "publisher": "Taylor & Francis", "abstract": "The growing necessity to improve city sustainability and liveability has pushed local administrators to look also at medium/long-term city logistics measures, such as land-use governance policies. In order to assess long-term scenarios, it is necessary to have models and methods able to take into account the effects on shopping mobility and goods restocking, generated by these classes of measures (e.g. relocation of shopping zones). Besides, we have to consider that modifications of shopping attitudes, deriving from changes of demographic and socio-economic characteristics of end consumers, can impact on purchasing behaviour and hence on restocking mobility. This paper discusses a number of issues related to the simulation of medium/long-term scenarios and presents a system of models that consider shopping mobility and restocking jointly. The presented shopping demand models, in combination with urban restocking models, are implemented within a simulation support system named City Logistics Analysis and Simulation Support System and are used to assess the effects on the freight restocking due to demographic and socio-economic variations including some hypotheses on new land-use development governance measures in a medium-size urban area. The main results confirm the modelling goodness and, at the same time, demonstrate that changes in demographic and socio-economic characteristics could cause relevant effects, in particular increasing car use in shopping mobility. The growing e-shopping could limit the negative effects of these changes, but the impacts of home deliveries have to be considered. The relocation of commercial and logistics centres, closer to the residential distribution, could drive a different restocking pattern with a consequent reduction in freight vehicle mobility. Anyway, this reduction is not very relevant and therefore further city logistics measures have to be implemented.", "keywords": [ "Relocation", "Business", "Purchasing", "Sustainability", "Term (time)", "Corporate governance", "Environmental economics", "Transport engineering", "Marketing", "Computer science", "Economics", "Finance" ], "cited_by_count": 25, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1080/12265934.2014.928601" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2988256225", "doi": "10.1007/s42421-019-00011-x", "title": "Exploring Algorithms for Revealing Freight Vehicle Tours, Tour-Types, and Tour-Chain-Types from GPS Vehicle Traces and Stop Activity Data", "year": 2019, "publication_date": "2019-11-07", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "André Romano Alho", "Takanori Sakai", "Ming Hong Chua", "Kyungsoo Jeong", "Peiyu Jing", "Moshe E Ben-Akiva" ], "first_author": "André Romano Alho", "venue": "Journal of Big Data Analytics in Transportation", "publisher": "Springer Science+Business Media", "abstract": "Abstract Freight vehicle tours and tour-chains are essential elements of state-the-art agent-based urban freight simulations as well as key units to analyse freight vehicle demand. GPS traces are typically used to extract vehicle tours and tour-chains and became available in a large scale to, for example, fleet management firms. While methods to process this data with the objective of analysing and modelling tour-based freight vehicle operations have been proposed, they were not fully explored with regard to the implication of underlying assumptions. In this context, we test different algorithms of stop-to-tour assignment, tour-type and tour-chain identification, aiming to expose their implications. Specifically, we compare the traditional stop-to-tour assignment algorithm using the location of a “base” as the start/end point of tours, against other algorithms using stop activities or payload capacity usage. Furthermore, we explore high-resolution tour-type/chain identification algorithms, considering stop types and recurrence of visits. For tour-chain identification, we explore two algorithms: one defines the day-level tour-chain-type based on the predominant tour-type identified for the period of 1 day and another defines the tour-chain-type based on the average number of stops per tour by stop type. For a demonstration purpose, we apply the methods to data from a large-scale GPS-based survey conducted during 2017–2019 in Singapore. We compare the algorithms in an assessment of freight vehicle operations day-to-day pattern homogeneity. Our analysis demonstrates that the predictions of tours, tourtypes, and tour-chain-types are highly dependent on the assumptions used, underlining the importance of carefully selecting and disclosing the methods for data processing. Finally, the exploration of day-to-day pattern homogeneity reveals operational differences across vehicle types and industries.", "keywords": [ "Global Positioning System", "Computer science", "Identification (biology)", "Context (archaeology)", "Payload (computing)", "Operations research", "Algorithm", "Engineering", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 28, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s42421-019-00011-x.pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2296085992", "doi": null, "title": "Location Choice Models of Urban Logistics Facilities and the Impact of Zoning on their Spatial Distribution and Efficiency", "year": 2016, "publication_date": "2016-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Takanori Sakai", "Kazuya Kawamura", "Tetsuro Hyodo" ], "first_author": "Takanori Sakai", "venue": "Transportation Research Board 95th Annual MeetingTransportation Research Board", "publisher": null, "abstract": "In this paper, the authors develop location choice models for logistics facilities, applying the framework of the discrete choice model. They use the models to test land-use policies that are designed to decrease overall truck travel. The data from the 5th Tokyo Metropolitan Freight Survey, a large comprehensive urban freight survey conducted during 2013-2014, are used for estimating the models. The models show heterogeneity in the factors for location choice by facility size and suggest a strong influence of shipping origins and destinations for each facility’s choice of location, compared with general accessibility indicators. While still preliminary, these findings indicate that logistics land-use policies need to take into account specific needs of the target group(s) of logistics facilities. The authors also conduct simulations to evaluate the impacts of different zoning scenarios. The early result indicates that zoning regulation is more influential to larger facilities, but the scale of the impact is modest compared to the deviations of random effects. The findings underscore the complexity of reducing truck travel through land-use policies.", "keywords": [ "Zoning", "Metropolitan area", "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Land use", "Destinations", "Business", "Facility location problem", "Scale (ratio)", "Distribution (mathematics)", "Geography", "Operations research" ], "cited_by_count": 14, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://trid.trb.org/view/1394409" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4410252316", "doi": "10.1016/j.cor.2025.107104", "title": "A branch-price-and-cut algorithm for the time-dependent multiple truck–drone routing problem", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-05-10", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Xiaoning Zang", "Li Jiang", "Changyong Liang", "Xiang Fang" ], "first_author": "Xiaoning Zang", "venue": "Computers & Operations Research", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Computer science", "Vehicle routing problem", "Branch and price", "Branch and cut", "Routing algorithm", "Mathematical optimization", "Algorithm", "Integer programming", "Mathematics" ], "cited_by_count": 12, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cor.2025.107104" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2592910976", "doi": "10.5937/tehnika1504687t", "title": "Cooperation and consolidation of flows in city logistics", "year": 2015, "publication_date": "2015-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Snežana Radoman Tadić", "Slobodan Zečević" ], "first_author": "Snežana Radoman Tadić", "venue": "Tehnika", "publisher": "Savez inženjera i tehničara Srbije", "abstract": "Urban logistics systems are intensively changing and adapting to the demands of efficient supply and environmental protection. The productivity and profitability of companies and satisfaction of the resident's requirements in terms of the availability of various goods at lower prices, depends on the efficiency of the urban logistics system. On the other side, the level of interest in the environment is growing and initiates researches and implementation of effective and sustainable initiatives, city logistics concepts. The most frequently applied initiatives are those that relate to the regulation or restrictions and control of access for the urban freight vehicles. However, these initiatives don't solve the problems of commodity flows and can worsen logistics performance. Furthermore, they have not proved effective in terms of the environment and economy. For this reason, the concepts that involve the cooperation of carriers and consolidation of flows are promoted. They are focused on logistics activities and can provide many positive effects for the purpose of environmental and economic sustainability. Nevertheless, they are rarely implemented in practice, and most were scarcely successful. Mentioned facts indicate the importance of research of these conceptions, both from the aspect of the structure and characteristics of the logistics system, and the aspect of the role and functions of the public sector in their promotion.", "keywords": [ "Business", "Consolidation (business)", "Profitability index", "Sustainability", "Promotion (chess)", "Industrial organization", "Commodity", "Productivity", "Environmental economics", "City logistics", "Transport engineering", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.5937/tehnika1504687t" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4412580498", "doi": "10.1080/00207543.2025.2536193", "title": "Optimising vertical deliveries with integrated hybrid drone-truck systems", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-07-22", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Ryan O’Neil", "Abdelhakim Khatab", "Uday Venkatadri", "Claver Diallo", "Nidhal Rezg" ], "first_author": "Ryan O’Neil", "venue": "International Journal of Production Research", "publisher": "Taylor & Francis", "abstract": "Last-mile delivery (LMD) constitutes a significant portion of contemporary distribution networks, accounting for up to 75% of total supply chain costs. Drones offer numerous advantages over conventional delivery systems, including reduced energy consumption, enhanced flexibility, and lower carbon emissions. However, drone delivery faces limitations such as range, payload carrying capacity, battery life, and regulatory hurdles. This paper presents a novel optimisation model for a 3D multi-visit multi-launch integrated hybrid drone–truck delivery system capable of delivering to multiple customers at various altitudes. Drones can launch multiple times from a truck stop and rendezvous with the truck at a subsequent truck stop. A formulation is proposed that incorporates real-time payload, payload-carrying capacity, battery capacity, and energy consumption profiles to determine optimal truck and drone routes. Small-scale instances are solved to optimality using Gurobi, while large-scale instances are addressed through a solution approach integrating a Relax-&-Fix heuristic and column generation. Experiments are conducted to demonstrate the model's key features and emphasise the significance of incorporating multi-drone launches and their energy consumption function into the delivery decision process. Numerical results indicate trade-offs between drone and truck travel time, customer altitude, and drone energy consumption.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Computer science", "Engineering", "Automotive engineering", "Aeronautics", "Operations management" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2025.2536193" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2977009888", "doi": "10.3390/su11195214", "title": "Lorry Park Selection Criteria and Drivers’ Preferences: A Study from the UK", "year": 2019, "publication_date": "2019-09-24", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "José Manuel García-Gallego", "Taeun Kang", "Sergio Rubio", "Andrea Genovese" ], "first_author": "José Manuel García-Gallego", "venue": "Sustainability", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "Increasing urbanization and economic activities has intensified the need for logistical processes in cities. This leads to higher levels of urban freight transport, which is associated with negative social and environmental impacts. Advances in urban logistics can help to alleviate these problems; the recent literature suggests that the creation of appropriate lorry park facilities can represent one of the possible solutions to the social and environmental issues connected to freight transport in urban areas. However, in order to be effective, such facilities need to be properly designed; studies which identify critical success factors for lorry park operations are currently lacking. As such, the purpose of this research is to identify the main criteria which lorry drivers consider when selecting a lorry park facility. In order to achieve these aims, a questionnaire survey was designed; responses from 99 lorry drivers operating in the United Kingdom were collected. Through descriptive statistics, followed by the usage of a conjoint analysis, the main results show that attributes related to food, price, and security are the most important to lorry drivers and are likely to determine the success of such initiatives. These results can provide information to policy and decision-makers related to the design of lorry park facilities in order to achieve the desired results in urban areas.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Order (exchange)", "Business", "Urbanization", "Conjoint analysis", "Transport engineering", "Descriptive statistics", "Environmental planning", "Environmental economics", "Engineering", "Geography", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 3, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/19/5214/pdf?version=1569300061" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3162373904", "doi": "10.1016/j.procs.2021.03.060", "title": "Development of a decision support tool for sustainable urban logistics optimization", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-01-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Paul-Eric Dossou", "Axel Vermersch" ], "first_author": "Paul-Eric Dossou", "venue": "Procedia Computer Science", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "Traffic flows are increasing in cities, partially due to congestions provoked by trucks. These congestions cause many problems such as pollution (gasoil, Carbon, etc.), noise, waste of time. Indeed, cities like Paris, Hamburg, Milan, and “Grand Paris Sud” conurbation are thinking about a sustainable alternative solution to road transportation. Then, a research based on co-creation methodology integrating all stakeholders (local authorities, companies, citizens) for elaborating an alternative solution to road transportation has been defined. This paper presents the architecture and the development of a decision aided tool for simulating and optimizing alternative solutions to road transportation", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Conurbation", "Computer science", "Decision support system", "Architecture", "Sustainable development", "Traffic congestion", "Operations research", "Transport engineering", "Economy", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 13, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050921006918/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2067972278", "doi": "10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.03.117", "title": "Process Validation of Urban Freight and Logistics Models", "year": 2012, "publication_date": "2012-01-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Rick Donnelly", "Russell George Thompson", "M R Wigan" ], "first_author": "Rick Donnelly", "venue": "Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "A number of innovative modelling approaches for the analysis of urban freight demand and its impact upon the built environment and transport infrastructure have been proposed over the past several years. These range from new and more robust synthetic models to tour-based formulations based on truck survey data to agent-based microsimulation models. As impressive as these contributions are, most have only included nominal validation efforts, typically limited to comparing the flow estimates to observed traffic counts. In many cases in both research and practice the quality and quantity of these counts are disappointing, and definitive conclusions about model validity and accuracy are difficult to draw from them. Fortunately, increasing the number of counts is far from the only option open to modellers. A far more expansive practice known as process validation can not only overcome the limitations of count data, but admit a far wider spectrum of information, data, and knowledge to the task. This paper illustrates how the process was applied to a tour-based microsimulation model of urban freight, and offers suggestions how it can be more widely applied to freight and logistics models.", "keywords": [ "Microsimulation", "Expansive", "Computer science", "Process (computing)", "Truck", "Task (project management)", "Operations research", "Quality (philosophy)", "Transport engineering", "Data quality", "Operations management", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 9, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042812005848/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4403041442", "doi": "10.1016/j.trd.2024.104441", "title": "Reexamining exposure from truck emissions considering daily movement of individuals", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-10-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Tong Xiao", "Zhengtao Qin", "Yougeng Lu", "Yuan Chao", "Chao Yang", "Quan Yuan" ], "first_author": "Tong Xiao", "venue": "Transportation Research Part D Transport and Environment", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "Movement (music)", "Environmental science", "Environmental health", "Physical medicine and rehabilitation", "Engineering", "Medicine", "Automotive engineering", "Physics" ], "cited_by_count": 9, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2024.104441" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4223955535", "doi": "10.1061/jtepbs.0000669", "title": "Sustainable Transportation Networks Incorporating Green Modes for Urban Freight Delivery", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-04-15", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "MohammadHossein Shojaei", "Fatemeh Fakhrmoosavi", "Ali Zockaie", "Mehrnaz Ghamami", "Archak Mittal", "James Fishelson" ], "first_author": "MohammadHossein Shojaei", "venue": "Journal of Transportation Engineering Part A Systems", "publisher": "American Society of Civil Engineers", "abstract": "The sustainability of transportation networks is threatened by growing amounts of emissions generated by vehicles. Urban freight delivery is one of the major sources of these emissions. Cargo cycles are attracting increasing attention for urban delivery owing to their numerous benefits, such as being less pollutant, requiring less space on roads, and high maneuverability. Electric vans have also been proposed as another green mode of freight delivery with a larger delivery capacity and range relative to cargo cycles. In this study, urban freight delivery is targeted through a heterogeneous fleet vehicle routing problem. The proposed framework is used to capture the optimal configuration of a mixed freight delivery fleet offering cargo cycles (i.e., pedal-assisted bikes and trikes as well as electric bikes and trikes) alongside the often-used diesel or gasoline vans or small trucks and electric vans. The formulated problem aims to minimize the delivery costs for companies, including maintenance, purchase, fuel, and labor costs and noise and emission taxes. The methodological contribution of this study is to develop a new metaheuristic algorithm, based on variable neighborhood search and simulated annealing, that finds a better solution with up to 7% lower objective function value and 50% to 80% lower solution times relative to the existing approaches in the literature. This study also demonstrates that bikes and trikes are selected at short delivery distances in the Chicago downtown network. Electric vans are more suitable for large distances, while cargo vans are selected for medium distances. Imposing an emission tax would change the model from cargo vans to electric vans. The results also show that increasing tax levels does not necessarily reduce societal costs because the delivery company tends to maintain its profit margin by increasing delivery costs for customers.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Transport engineering", "City logistics", "Sustainable transport", "Sustainability", "Simulated annealing", "Vehicle routing problem", "Traffic management", "Environmental economics", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Computer science", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 13, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1061/jtepbs.0000669" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4393141992", "doi": "10.1111/deci.12628", "title": "Using intermediate points in parcel delivery operations with truck‐based autonomous drones", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-03-25", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Bo Lan", "Yoshinori Suzuki" ], "first_author": "Bo Lan", "venue": "Decision Sciences", "publisher": "Wiley", "abstract": "Abstract Autonomous drones are no longer science fiction but are becoming reality. Prior studies have investigated how an autonomous drone can be used in conjunction with a parcel delivery truck, but they all restricted the drones’ launch/recovery sites to customer nodes visited by a truck. In practice, parcel carriers are considering the use of intermediate points (IPs), the sites found along the arcs connecting customer nodes, as drones' launch/recovery points. This means that the academic literature currently lags the industry practice. This article extends the previous works on truck‐and‐drone last‐mile delivery by investigating the conditions under which the use of IPs is beneficial by using both theoretical and empirical approaches. Our results show that, although using IPs is an effective concept that can save the cost (time) of package deliveries by 2.189% on average, the cost saving realized by using IPs can vary notably across carriers depending on their network characteristics. Specifically, our results suggest that the benefit of using IPs becomes high when a network has the following characteristics: (1) low customer density (a small number of customers served per square mile), and (2) large number of time‐sensitive packages (subject to time window constraints). Based on these findings, we provide normative implications on if, when, where, and to what extent IPs can be beneficial for the truck‐and‐drone joint operations in last‐mile logistics.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Computer science", "Operations research", "Operations management", "Business", "Mathematics", "Automotive engineering", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 8, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/deci.12628" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4285596413", "doi": "10.3390/su14148650", "title": "The Effects of Barriers and Freight Vehicle Restrictions on Logistics Costs: A Comparison before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-07-14", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Marcelo Werneck Barbosa", "Paulo Renato de Sousa", "Leise Kelli de Oliveira" ], "first_author": "Marcelo Werneck Barbosa", "venue": "Sustainability", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of the supply chains, in which the production, distribution, and transportation systems were disrupted, permanently or temporarily. Despite the enormous influences the pandemic had on transportation systems, no study has yet assessed the extent to which the freight restrictions and barriers influenced logistics costs after the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. However, understanding them is necessary to guide and stimulate public policies that intend to optimize the effects of freight restrictions on logistics costs. Thus, this paper assesses and compares the effects that such barriers in urban freight transport, and the restrictions imposed on freight vehicles, had on logistics costs before and during the pandemic. We surveyed more than 120 logistics professionals in Brazil in both 2018 and 2020/2021, making comparisons using models that were assessed using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The findings suggest that barriers and freight restrictions influenced the logistics costs positively, but such influences reduced during the pandemic. Being aware of the barriers and restrictions that influence logistics costs and of how the pandemic increased the effects of some restrictions is essential for managers to be able make timely and appropriate decisions and to plan and implement initiatives to prevent or reduce costs.", "keywords": [ "Pandemic", "Business", "Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)", "Supply chain", "Distribution (mathematics)", "Traffic management", "Transport engineering", "Industrial organization", "Marketing", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 19, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/14/8650/pdf?version=1658191696" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3089899887", "doi": "10.1016/j.trc.2020.102813", "title": "The multiple flying sidekicks traveling salesman problem with variable drone speeds", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-09-28", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Ritwik Raj", "Chase C. Murray" ], "first_author": "Ritwik Raj", "venue": "Transportation Research Part C Emerging Technologies", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "Drone", "Computer science", "Range (aeronautics)", "Rendezvous", "Variable (mathematics)", "Fuel efficiency", "Simulation", "Automotive engineering", "Travelling salesman problem", "Real-time computing", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 168, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2020.102813" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4410088841", "doi": "10.1111/itor.70045", "title": "Collaborative delivery problem of trucks and multiple drones: an en‐route operation with flexible launch positions", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-05-05", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Bing Han", "Tianze Chi", "Zhengyi Sun" ], "first_author": "Bing Han", "venue": "International Transactions in Operational Research", "publisher": "Wiley", "abstract": "Abstract Drones are gradually being used in logistics, and collaborative systems combining trucks and drones are proposed for last‐mile delivery. Therefore, it is a meaningful study to improve the efficiency of collaborative delivery of truck–drone system. Based on the truck–drone collaborative delivery problem with en‐route operations, this paper introduces a new concept of flexible launch point, which is to set up multiple non‐customer stops in the truck's route for launching drones. In light of this concept, an en‐route operation with flexible positions in the truck–drone collaborative delivery problem is proposed. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear program that aims to minimize customer waiting times, determine the optimal route for the truck with multi‐drones, and establish the optimal flexible launch positions for the drones. We developed a variable neighborhood search algorithm and conducted large‐scale experiments. The experiments have demonstrated that the new collaborative approach maximizes drone utilization, expands the range of drone services, and ensures flexible launch. The en‐route operation with flexible launch positions presented in this paper provides innovative ideas for further application of trucks with multi‐drones in last‐mile delivery. This is also relevant for other scenarios, such as emergency management and routine inspections, which involve collaboration between trucks and drones.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Computer science", "Aeronautics", "Operations research", "Aerospace engineering", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 8, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/itor.70045" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2960835770", "doi": "10.1016/j.trpro.2019.06.018", "title": "Information system for city logistics. The case of Poland", "year": 2019, "publication_date": "2019-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Maja Kiba-Janiak", "Katarzyna Cheba" ], "first_author": "Maja Kiba-Janiak", "venue": "Transportation research procedia", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "According to the European Commission (2007), in the cities particular emphasis should be placed on the implementation of actions that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, noise and other pollutions. The implementation of these objectives requires access to much up-to-date information including the type and size of the flow of goods, passenger car traffic in the city, the number of accidents caused by drivers of trucks and cars, etc. Access to current data can greatly support local authorities in making the right decisions in the field of urban logistics (Małecki et al., 2014). Unfortunately, in most Polish cities such information is not collected or is collected irregularly. Consequently, in many cities decisions concerning the coordination of the flow of cargo and people in the city are made intuitively rather than based on actual data. In this paper the authors have set two - theoretical and empirical - objectives. The theoretical purpose concerns the authorial concept of a simplified city logistics information system. The empirical objective includes an analysis of the current state of logistics information systems in the selected cities and identification of the activities of Polish local governments in collecting and analysing data in the field of people and goods movement within the city. In order to identify the relationships between the extent of information collection; the size of the research city; and the organisation of the task related to the passenger and freight transport, the correspondence analysis was used.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Business", "City logistics", "Empirical research", "Order (exchange)", "Identification (biology)", "Information system", "Commission", "Computer science", "Environmental economics", "Operations research" ], "cited_by_count": 9, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352146519301061/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4381616685", "doi": "10.1209/0295-5075/ace078", "title": "Empirical analysis and modeling of the allometric scaling of urban freight systems", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-06-22", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Xu-Jie Lin", "Erjian Liu", "Yitao Yang", "Xiangyu Jia", "Xiao-Yong Yan" ], "first_author": "Xu-Jie Lin", "venue": "Europhysics Letters (EPL)", "publisher": "Institute of Physics", "abstract": "Abstract Heavy trucks which undertake the majority of freight volume play an important role in urban freight systems. By analyzing heavy truck trip data, we find a superlinear scaling relationship for heavy truck trips and a sublinear scaling relationship for heavy truck numbers relative to urban population size. Although these allometric scaling relationships that widely appear in nature and social systems have been explained by many models, a simple model that can cover a wide range of scaling exponents in these systems is still lacking. Here, we develop a partially mixing city operation model by quantifying the mixability of the urban population to explain why the superlinear and sublinear scaling exponents are in the range of 1 and . This simple model not only helps us understand the mechanism of allometric scaling of urban freight systems, but also provides a new framework for other superlinear and sublinear scaling relationships in cities.", "keywords": [ "Scaling", "Sublinear function", "Allometry", "Truck", "Range (aeronautics)", "Population", "Mathematics", "Econometrics", "Geography", "Ecology", "Engineering", "Demography" ], "cited_by_count": 9, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1209/0295-5075/ace078/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4313149476", "doi": "10.1007/978-3-030-92096-8_8", "title": "Promoting Zero-Emission Urban Logistics: Efficient Use of Electric Trucks Through Intelligent Range Estimation", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-01-01", "type": "book-chapter", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Sebastian Stütz", "Andreas Gade", "Daniela Kirsch" ], "first_author": "Sebastian Stütz", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "Abstract Critical success factors for the efficient use of electric trucks are the operational range and the total costs of ownership. For both range and efficient use, power consumption is the key factor. Increasing precision in forecasting power consumption and, hence, maximum range will pave the way for efficient vehicle deployment. However, not only electric trucks are scarce, but also is knowledge with respect to what these vehicles are actually technically capable of. Therefore, this article focuses on power consumption and range of electric vehicles. Following a discussion on how current research handles the mileage of electric vehicles, the article illustrates how to find simple yet robust and precise models to predict power consumption and range by using basic parameters from transport planning only. In the paper, we argue that the precision of range and consumption estimates can be substantially improved compared to common approaches which usually posit a proportional relationship between energy consumption and travel distance and require substantial safety buffers.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Range (aeronautics)", "Software deployment", "Driving range", "Consumption (sociology)", "Automotive engineering", "Power consumption", "Electric vehicle", "Fuel efficiency", "Zero emission", "Power (physics)", "Electric power" ], "cited_by_count": 3, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-030-92096-8_8.pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2950079692", "doi": null, "title": "Urban water truck: sustainable urban logistics", "year": 2019, "publication_date": "2019-01-01", "type": "dissertation", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Chandraprabha Jha", "Fredrik Hallström" ], "first_author": "Chandraprabha Jha", "venue": "Chalmers Publication Library (Chalmers University of Technology)", "publisher": "Chalmers University of Technology", "abstract": "Around 10 million people live in Sweden, out of which 86% of its population resides in urban areas.The urban population keeps on increasing, which poses significant challenges for Sweden.Overall, there is an increasing pressure on the livelihood of urban areas, relating to factors such as congestion, air pollution, noise pollution, among others.In this study we focus on Gothenburg, which is the second largest city in Sweden in terms of population.An innovative solution to consider in addressing these challenges in Gothenburg is the Urban Water Truck.The city of Gothenburg is characterized with its beautiful canals, which were historically an important mode of transportation and city infrastructure.Under the influence of modernization, the canals became a mere purpose of tourist attraction rather than urban mobility.The Urban Water Truck concept advocates for repurposing and efficient sustainable use of the canals.Through deploying qualitative research methods, we investigated how this innovation can be utilized for urban mobility of goods and waste and embedded within the current mobility system of the city.Several in-depth interviews were carried out with relevant stakeholders such as municipal departments, real estate companies, hotels, restaurants and experts on waste and logistics in the city , each holding a unique perspective, which allowed us to investigate this from various angles.To guide our inquiry and analyse our results we operationalized theory from the Stakeholder Power-Interest Matrix and Grounded Theory.The results revealed that the stakeholders perceive congestion as a key challenge for the City of Gothenburg and that the use of the waterways, the canals, may be a viable way of reducing this.Further, the flow of goods and waste of the inner city of Gothenburg were difficult to map however it was found that mapping of goods were relatively complex to document.For waste it was clear that the flow was systematic and very few actors operated in the city.However, due to the lack and confidentiality on the data related to the movement of waste in the city, flow was not mapped.Therefore, Urban Water Truck should start initially with the transportation of wastes.With regard to the stakeholders, the Power-Interest Matrix analysis demonstrates that key stakeholders in the context of this innovation yield different levels of power and interest, and each need to be addressed appropriately in order to make the solution viable.The results indicate that the Urban Water Truck has most likely a window of opportunity by seeking close collaboration with Stadsleveransen for integration in the current logistics system of Gothenburg.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "City logistics", "Environmental planning", "Business", "Transport engineering", "Environmental science", "Civil engineering", "Engineering", "Automotive engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "http://studentarbeten.chalmers.se/publication/256853-urban-water-truck-sustainable-urban-logistics" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4414520614", "doi": "10.1016/j.tre.2025.104425", "title": "Optimal design for an urban truck-drone collaborative delivery system enhanced with relay points", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-09-25", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Hongtai Yang", "Jianzhang Wu", "Zhaolin Zhang", "Xiaobo Liu", "Andrea D’Ariano" ], "first_author": "Hongtai Yang", "venue": "Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Leverage (statistics)", "Truck", "Relay", "Heuristic", "Key (lock)", "Drone", "Linear programming", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Vehicle routing problem" ], "cited_by_count": 11, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2025.104425" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W7128486010", "doi": "10.1016/j.jairtraman.2026.102978", "title": "Environmental sustainability and risk-aware optimization in hybrid truck-drone logistics: A holistic multi-objective framework", "year": 2026, "publication_date": "2026-02-10", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Armin Mahmoodi", "Seyed Mojtaba Sajadi", "Jeremy F. Laliberté", "Said M. Easa" ], "first_author": "Armin Mahmoodi", "venue": "Journal of Air Transport Management", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "Compared to conventional truck-only systems, hybrid truck–drone delivery systems offer transformative potential for last-mile logistics by addressing operational inefficiencies, minimizing environmental impact, and enhancing safety through risk-aware optimization. This study develops a stochastic multi-objective optimization framework grounded in the Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) methodology. By extending the vehicle routing problem with pickup and delivery (VRPPD) and the flying sidekick traveling salesman problem (FSTSP), the model incorporates battery optimization, CO 2 emissions reduction, and energy-efficient routing strategies. Delivery cost, time, energy consumption, operational risk, and battery performance are all optimized using a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) technique. Sensitivity analysis show that increasing drone fleet size and efficiency results in significant cost, time, and energy savings while improving safety. The model's flexibility in both urban and remote delivery contexts is confirmed by numerical trials. In line with life cycle analysis (LCA), this study offers practical advice for environmentally responsible and risk-aware logistics, assisting decision-makers and industry participants in the development of scalable and sustainable solutions. • Optimizes cost, time, risk, and energy in hybrid truck–drone logistics. • Uses MILP and NSGA-II for multi-objective routing and energy savings. • Incorporates SORA for risk-aware UAV operations in urban logistics. • Sensitivity shows drone efficiency cuts cost, risk, and CO 2 emissions. • Achieves energy-efficient delivery via battery-aware UAV coordination.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Flexibility (engineering)", "Sustainability", "Vehicle routing problem", "Travelling salesman problem", "Scalability", "Sensitivity (control systems)", "Sorting", "Routing (electronic design automation)" ], "cited_by_count": 13, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2026.102978" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2122268716", "doi": "10.1016/j.envsoft.2006.02.007", "title": "Assessing impacts of urban freight measures on air toxic emissions in Inner Sydney", "year": 2006, "publication_date": "2006-04-27", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Leorey Marquez", "Vivian Salim" ], "first_author": "Leorey Marquez", "venue": "Environmental Modelling & Software", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Metropolitan area", "Air quality index", "Greenhouse gas", "Air pollution", "Environmental science", "Population", "Environmental engineering", "Environmental planning", "Geography", "Business", "Agricultural economics", "Environmental health" ], "cited_by_count": 13, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2006.02.007" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4415226826", "doi": "10.1016/j.trd.2025.105033", "title": "Sustainable urban freight: pavement, environmental, and economic impacts of heavy-duty electric trucks", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-10-15", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Yue Chen", "Jianfeng Xue" ], "first_author": "Yue Chen", "venue": "Transportation Research Part D Transport and Environment", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "Electric trucks are increasingly seen as a key solution for reducing emissions in urban freight transport. To support their deployment, several Australian states have introduced trial exemptions that allow higher axle loads to accommodate battery weight. This study investigates the effects of these weight-limit exemptions on the serviceability and sustainability of three typical pavement designs under different traffic volumes. A life cycle assessment and life cycle cost assessment were conducted to evaluate both environmental and economic implications. Results show that increased axle loads reduce pavement service life by approximately 50 %. When electric truck-induced pavement deterioration is considered, total global warming potential emissions decrease by 76.2 %, 40.9 %, and 2.95 % for three pavement types when all vehicles are electric. When pavement deterioration is not considered, the reductions increase to 78.5 %, 51.4 %, and 24.2 % due to the exclusion of emissions from rehabilitation and additional energy use caused by deteriorated surfaces.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Serviceability (structure)", "Life-cycle assessment", "Axle", "Electrification", "Sustainability", "Global-warming potential", "Economic impact analysis", "Externality" ], "cited_by_count": 2, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2025.105033" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4407930565", "doi": "10.1080/21681015.2025.2468201", "title": "Optimizing multi-objective instant logistics with trucks and drones for the quick commerce order fulfilment", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-02-24", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Haoran Ma", "Yung Po Tsang", "C.K.M. Lee" ], "first_author": "Haoran Ma", "venue": "Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering", "publisher": "Taylor & Francis", "abstract": "Quick commerce (Q-commerce) is an emerging online retail model that demands near-instant order fulfillment and adapts to delivering goods with varying environmental requirements, including temperature-sensitive items. Addressing the complex optimization challenges in distribution, a gap in effective delivery route planning and tool utilization has been identified. This study introduces three innovations: (1) a formulation that reduces drone sub-route path computations for real-time decision-making, (2) a multi-objective instant delivery model employing both vehicles and drones, and (3) a multi-objective memetic algorithm that accounts for time windows and temperature variations. Computational experiments demonstrate that this approach outperforms traditional models, significantly enhancing delivery time satisfaction, product quality, and overall service efficiency. The model scales effectively to large order quantities while maintaining a high customer satisfaction rate of 97%. This research contributes to the industrial engineering literature by presenting a novel Q-commerce logistics model and offering insights into multi-objective optimization for last-mile delivery.", "keywords": [ "Instant", "Drone", "Order (exchange)", "Truck", "Computer science", "Operations management", "Operations research", "Business", "Computer security", "Economics", "Automotive engineering", "Mathematics" ], "cited_by_count": 8, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1080/21681015.2025.2468201" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2810238503", "doi": "10.1002/9781119425526.ch21", "title": "Are Cities' Delivery Spaces in the Right Places? Mapping Truck Load/Unload Locations", "year": 2018, "publication_date": "2018-05-30", "type": "other", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Anne Goodchild", "Barb Ivanov", "Ed McCormack", "Anne Vernez Moudon", "Jason Y. Scully", "José Machado Leon", "Gabriela Giron Valderrama" ], "first_author": "Anne Goodchild", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "Two converging trends – the rise of e-commerce and urban population growth – challenge cities facing competing uses for road, curb and alley space. The University of Washington has formed a living Urban Freight Lab to solve city logistics problems that cross private and public sector boundaries. To assess the capacity of the city's truck load/unload spaces, the lab collected GIS coordinates for private truck loading bays, and combined them with public GIS layers to create a comprehensive map of the city's truck parking infrastructure. The chapter offers a practical approach to identify useful existent urban GIS data for little or no cost; collect original granular urban truck data for private freight bays and loading docks; and overlay the existing GIS layers and a new layer to study city-wide truck parking capacity. The Urban Freight Lab's first research project is addressing the \"Final 50 Feet\" of the urban delivery system.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Alley", "Geographic information system", "Overlay", "Population", "Civil engineering", "Geography", "Environmental planning", "Engineering", "Business", "Computer science" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119425526.ch21" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4221115166", "doi": "10.1016/j.rtbm.2022.100804", "title": "An agent-based simulation assessment of freight parking demand management strategies for large urban freight generators", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-03-14", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "André Romano Alho", "Simon Oh", "Ravi Seshadri", "Giacomo Dalla Chiara", "Wen Han Chong", "Takanori Sakai", "Lynette W. Cheah", "Moshe E Ben-Akiva" ], "first_author": "André Romano Alho", "venue": "Research in Transportation Business & Management", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Traffic management", "Transport engineering", "Externality", "Traffic congestion", "Queueing theory", "Demand management", "Business", "City logistics", "Parking guidance and information", "Computer science", "Engineering", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 15, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/1721.1/148396/2/An-Agent-Based-Simulation-Lg-Freight.pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W1242608265", "doi": null, "title": "Estimating Urban Freight Congestion Costs: Methodologies, Measures, and Applications", "year": 2013, "publication_date": "2013-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "William L. Eisele", "David L. Schrank", "Rick Schuman", "T J Lomax" ], "first_author": "William L. Eisele", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "Congestion is a significant problem in America’s 439 urban areas. According to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s 2011 Urban Mobility Report (UMR), congestion caused urban Americans to travel 4.8 billion hours more and to purchase an extra 1.9 billion gallons of fuel for a congestion cost of $101 billion. The UMR informs decision-making at the federal, state, and local levels. In 2011, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute released the inaugural Congested Corridors Report, which produces congestion statistics for the 328 most congested directional corridors in the United States. With the documented growth in freight shipments, particularly in the trucking sector, researchers were interested in developing methodologies and measures to help inform policy-makers and decision-makers characterize the impacts of congestion on urban areas. These methodologies and measures were developed and incorporated into the UMR and CCR. The methodologies use inventory data from the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA’s) Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) and historical speed data from INRIX® to estimate wasted time (delay in person-hours) and diesel fuel (gallons wasted), as well as the associated costs for trucks in urban congestion. The results and rankings appear intuitive, and this information provides an important dimension to these reports for characterizing congestion levels in urban areas and along congested corridors in America. This information will help to inform trucking stakeholders by quantifying the congestion impact to the trucking community. Researchers will continue to include truck delay, wasted fuel, and associated costs for urban area trucks in future releases of the UMR and CCR.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Traffic congestion", "Transport engineering", "Business", "Externality", "Engineering", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 9, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.258.575" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4324057400", "doi": "10.1016/j.egyr.2023.03.018", "title": "Assessing the decarbonization potential of China’s light-duty truck fleet by electrification", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-03-13", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Jianxin Li", "Lei Wang", "Changxing Ji", "Huanran Liu", "Linfeng Lu", "Ting Zhang", "Mingnan Zhao", "Shujie Xu" ], "first_author": "Jianxin Li", "venue": "Energy Reports", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "Light-duty trucks (LDTs) play an important role in last-mile delivery. To assess the CO2 mitigation potential of the electrification pathway of the LDT fleet in China, a dynamic fleet-based life cycle assessment model is developed. Four scenarios with different electrification progress are designed to evaluate the LDT stock growth, energy demand and the life cycle CO2 emissions quantitatively. The results show that LDT stock will increase to about 38 million in 2050. Energy demand and life cycle CO2 emissions of the LDT fleet can be greatly reduced with the increase in the proportion of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in the LDT stock. The electrification mitigation benefit obtained from the fuel cycle will eventually outweigh the additional CO2 emissions generated by the vehicle cycle, especially in the long term with a cleaner power grid and a higher proportion of BEV in the LDT stock.", "keywords": [ "Electrification", "Truck", "Environmental science", "Stock (firearms)", "Automotive engineering", "Heavy duty", "Engineering", "Electricity", "Electrical engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 6, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2023.03.018" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4213439636", "doi": "10.1109/wsc52266.2021.9715506", "title": "Parcel Delivery For Smart Cities: A Synchronization Approach For Combined Truck-Drone-Street Robot Deliveries", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-12-12", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Berry Gerrits", "Peter C. Schuur" ], "first_author": "Berry Gerrits", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "The past decade saw many novel concepts for last-mile delivery. Particularly interesting is the concept in which trucks dispatch - from designated points - drones or robots that do the actual delivery. Generally, the role of the truck driver is underexposed. This paper proposes a last-mile delivery concept in which a truck carries a mixed fleet of drones and robots, and where the driver also has an active role in the delivery process. Our aim is to efficiently align the service time required by the truck driver with the back-and-forth delivery times of the drones and the robots. To this end, we design a street delivery model using continuous approximation. We evaluate our approach using a flexible and reusable simulation model to enable tactical decision-making for logistics service providers to determine which neighborhoods are suitable for drones, street robots, or combinations, in terms of makespan and energy consumption.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Robot", "Service (business)", "Computer science", "Synchronization (alternating current)", "Process (computing)", "Last mile (transportation)", "Transport engineering", "Mile", "Engineering", "Automotive engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://research.utwente.nl/en/publications/327fd0c6-b44e-4c3d-8a11-163617458975" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4415684823", "doi": "10.3390/aerospace12110967", "title": "A Scheduling Model for Optimizing Joint UAV-Truck Operations in Last-Mile Logistics Distribution", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-10-29", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Xiaocheng Liu", "Yuhan Wang", "Meilong Le", "Zhongye Wang", "Honghai Zhang" ], "first_author": "Xiaocheng Liu", "venue": "Aerospace", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "This paper investigates the joint scheduling problem of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and trucks for community logistics, where UAVs act as service providers for last-mile delivery and trucks serve as mobile storage platforms for drone deployment. To address the complexity of decision variables, this paper proposes a three-stage solution scheme that divides the problem into the following: (1) UAV mission set generation via clustering, (2) truck-drone route planning, and (3) collaborative scheduling via a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model. The MILP model, solved exactly using Gurobi, optimizes truck movements and drone operations to minimize total delivery time, representing the core contribution. In the experimental section, to verify the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model, comparative experiments were conducted against a heuristic algorithm based on empirical intuitive decision-making. The solution results of experiments with different scales indicate that the joint scheduling model outperforms the scheduling strategies based on empirical experience across various scenario sizes. Additionally, multiple experiments conducted under different parameter settings within the same scenario successfully demonstrated that the model can stably be solved without deteriorating results when parameters change. Furthermore, this study observed that the relationship between the increase in the number of drones and the decrease in the total consumed time is not a simple linear relationship. This phenomenon is speculated to be due to the periodic patterns exhibited by the drone scheduling sequence, which align with the average duration of individual tasks.", "keywords": [ "Scheduling (production processes)", "Drone", "Correctness", "Linear programming", "Job shop scheduling", "Truck" ], "cited_by_count": 8, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/12/11/967/pdf?version=1761751548" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4200549986", "doi": "10.1016/j.rtbm.2021.100745", "title": "Property owners as possible game changers for sustainable urban freight", "year": 2021, "publication_date": "2021-12-09", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Alena Brettmo", "Iván Sánchez-Díaz" ], "first_author": "Alena Brettmo", "venue": "Research in Transportation Business & Management", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "Commercial activity and the underlying freight movements supporting them are essential to urban life. Unfortunately, urban freight has negative effects on sustainability and requires innovative approaches to enhance the positive aspects and minimize the negative ones. There is a common understanding among practitioners, with support from the literature, that the negative impacts of urban freight can be alleviated with better knowledge about the system and by identifying and engaging influential stakeholders. This paper focuses on property owners and their role in encouraging initiatives that lead to more sustainable urban freight delivery practices. Property owners engage in sustainability issues in real estate because they are interested in developing their properties to increase their attractiveness, competitiveness, and future market value. A shopping mall is an example of a property that generates a lot of freight traffic due to intense commercial activity. This paper studies the delivery patterns to a centrally located shopping mall in the city of Gothenburg and identifies how property owners could influence the delivery patterns of their tenants. A range of initiatives is proposed based on the literature and considering the delivery patterns observed. The results show that property owners can include freight deliveries in their sustainability strategy, focusing on fostering collaboration and communication between the tenants and promoting supply chain strategies that consider the type of activities that take place and the scope to reduce the number of truck movements and increase the efficient and sustainable goods deliveries.", "keywords": [ "Business", "Sustainability", "Attractiveness", "Traffic management", "Supply chain", "Scope (computer science)", "Truck", "Real estate", "Sustainable city", "Marketing", "Transport engineering", "Finance" ], "cited_by_count": 10, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rtbm.2021.100745" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4385482058", "doi": "10.1109/cscloud-edgecom58631.2023.00013", "title": "A Short Review of Truck and Drone Collaborative Delivery Problem", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-07-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Yena Zhu", "Min Liu", "D. Jin" ], "first_author": "Yena Zhu", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "With the emergence of efficient logistics models and the development of drone technology, the last-mile delivery problem has become a focus of attention for scholars in various fields. The advantages of drones, such as low cost, energy saving, and independence from road conditions, have made them increasingly popular in the delivery industry. However, drones have shortcomings such as short endurance, small payload capacity, and susceptibility to interference. Therefore, the cooperative delivery model of vehicles and drones has important theoretical research significance and practical application value. Existing literature reviews focus on static truck-drone delivery problems (TDDPs) and methods such as exact algorithms, heuristics, and metaheuristics. However, real-life truck-drone delivery problems are easily affected by dynamic environmental changes. Accordingly, this article introduces some new dynamic variants of TDDPs proposed in recent years, which consider variable drone flight endurance, urban crowded road conditions, stochastic customer demands, and the influence of weather changes. In recent years, some new methods for solving TDDPs have been introduced, such as the increasingly popular machine learning and reinforcement learning methods. Finally, the possible future research directions and development trends of TDDPs are presented.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Computer science", "Aeronautics", "Engineering", "Aerospace engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 5, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/cscloud-edgecom58631.2023.00013" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4393114371", "doi": "10.1007/s40864-024-00216-6", "title": "The Optimization of Split Demand Route Planning Under Metro-Truck Collaborative Distribution", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-03-23", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Jin Li", "Yaqiu Wang", "Huasheng Liu" ], "first_author": "Jin Li", "venue": "Urban Rail Transit", "publisher": "Springer Science+Business Media", "abstract": "Abstract With the evolution of people's consumption habits and the rapid growth of urban logistics, the number of trucks and delivery frequency has increased significantly, exacerbating urban traffic congestion and environmental pollution. Consequently, there is an urgent need to improve the current inefficient and highly polluted distribution mode. Currently, in most cities in China, the metro passenger flow is insufficient, and the capacity is excessive during off-peak hours, resulting in underutilized carriage capacity. The integration of surface and underground transport resources can effectively address these issues and facilitate complementary advantages and win–win cooperation between express companies and metro enterprises. This study proposes an innovative problem of split demand route planning in the cooperative distribution system involving express companies and subways. A cooperative distribution model is developed to minimize the total cost, and solved by the Cuckoo Search algorithm to obtain the optimized solution. The model is applied to the urban rail transit network in Changchun, and the results demonstrate that it is effective in reducing truck mileage and distribution costs. Compared to the single delivery pattern by trucks, the cooperative distribution approach proves to be more cost-effective and environmentally friendly.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Traffic congestion", "Distribution (mathematics)", "Cuckoo search", "Business", "Environmental economics", "Computer science", "Engineering", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 9, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s40864-024-00216-6.pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4281953870", "doi": "10.3390/en15114058", "title": "Urban Freight Transport Electrification in Westbank, Palestine: Environmental and Economic Benefits", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-06-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Fady M. A. Hassouna" ], "first_author": "Fady M. A. Hassouna", "venue": "Energies", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "Recently, due to the industrial and e-commerce revolution, the freight transport sector has grown rapidly and has become one of the key factors for economic development. Coupled with the growth of this sector, significant energy and environmental problems have arisen. Therefore, a huge effort has been made around the world in order to develop some solutions that could mitigate these problems. One of these promising solutions is electrifying the urban freight transport sector including the trucks and freight commercial vehicles fleets. In Palestine, as in other developing countries, the implications of this solution are still unquantified and the efficiency of the application is unpredicted. Therefore, this has necessitated a comprehensive study that considers all the relevant factors, such as the source of the electricity (renewable energy, oils, natural gas, etc.), fuel rates, and electricity rates. In this study, a prediction model has been developed using the historical data for the number of trucks and freight commercial vehicles over the period 2006–2020. Next, the total travelled kilometers, the total fuel consumption, and the total electricity consumption by the urban freight transport sector have been determined based on two scenarios (5% and 20% penetration of electric freight transport modes) during the next 10 years. Finally, the amounts of reduction in GHG emissions and the energy cost have been determined. The results have shown a significant reduction in the amount of GHG emission during the next 10 years by electrifying 20% of the freight transport sector in Westbank, Palestine. Moreover, an annual reduction of 66 million U.S $ could be achieved in total energy costs in this region.", "keywords": [ "Electrification", "Truck", "Greenhouse gas", "Electricity", "Renewable energy", "Fuel efficiency", "Energy consumption", "Traffic management", "Natural resource economics", "Market penetration", "Transport engineering", "Business" ], "cited_by_count": 10, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/11/4058/pdf?version=1654053507" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4394762289", "doi": "10.3390/app14083245", "title": "Measurement and Analysis of Last-Mile Parcel Delivery Truck Vibration Levels in Korea", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-04-12", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Saewhan Kim", "László Horváth", "S. H. Lee", "Sangwook Lee" ], "first_author": "Saewhan Kim", "venue": "Applied Sciences", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "South Korea has one of the largest e-commerce markets in the world. The last-mile delivery segment of e-commerce often causes critical damage to products in protective packages. Despite the rapid growth of the e-commerce market in Korea, the last-mile distribution environment has not yet been thoroughly investigated. The main aim of this study was to provide an understanding of the vibration levels that were measured from various parcel delivery routes within Seoul, Korea, using common types of parcel delivery trucks. Vibration levels of ten delivery trucks were measured and analyzed in terms of power spectral densities (PSDs) and presented as PSD spectra. The last-mile delivery vehicle vibration levels in Korea were found to be consistently lower (in the 1 to 200 Hz frequency range) than those recommended by international standards and lower than the vibration levels of parcel delivery vehicles in the U.S. and Hungary. The results also revealed that the highest intensity peak of the PSD spectrum for Korea was located in the lower frequency range (1.5 to 2 Hz) compared to the ISTA 3A pickup and delivery test profile (3 to 4 Hz) and the test profile recommended for Hungary (13 to 16 Hz). A smoothed composite spectrum was also provided to support Korean packaging engineers in optimizing their packages by simulating proper last-mile truck delivery vibration levels in lab conditions.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Mile", "Last mile (transportation)", "Mechanical vibration", "Vibration", "Frequency spectrum", "Range (aeronautics)", "Engineering", "Automotive engineering", "Environmental science", "Spectral density", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 6, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/8/3245/pdf?version=1712905657" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4386415986", "doi": "10.3390/smartcities6050107", "title": "Optimising Urban Freight Logistics Using Discrete-Event Simulation and Cluster Analysis: A Stochastic Two-Tier Hub-and-Spoke Architecture Approach", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-09-04", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Zichong Lyu", "Dirk John Pons", "Gilbert Palliparampil", "Yilei Zhang" ], "first_author": "Zichong Lyu", "venue": "Smart Cities", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "The transport of freight involves numerous intermediate steps, such as freight consolidation, truck allocation, and routing, all of which exhibit high day-to-day variability. On the delivery side, drivers usually cover specific geographic regions, also known as clusters, to optimise operational efficiency. A crucial aspect of this process is the effective allocation of resources to match business requirements. The discrete-event simulation (DES) technique excels in replicating intricate real-world operations and can integrate a multitude of stochastic variables, thereby enhancing its utility for decision making. The objective of this study is to formulate a routing architecture that integrates with a DES model to capture the variability in freight operations. This integration is intended to provide robust support for informed decision-making processes. A two-tier hub-and-spoke (H&S) architecture was proposed to simulate stochastic routing for the truck fleet, which provided insights into travel distance and time for cluster-based delivery. Real industry data were employed in geographic information systems (GISs) to apply the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN) clustering method to identify customer clusters and establish a truck plan based on freight demand and truck capacity. This clustering analysis and simulation approach can serve as a planning tool for freight logistics companies and distributors to optimise their resource utilisation and operational efficiency, and the findings may be applied to develop plans for new regions with customer locations and freight demands. The original contribution of this study is the integration of variable last-mile routing and an operations model for freight decision making.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Cluster analysis", "Computer science", "Operations research", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Vehicle routing problem", "Transport engineering", "Engineering", "Computer network" ], "cited_by_count": 18, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2624-6511/6/5/107/pdf?version=1693818935" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4406817783", "doi": "10.1016/j.trip.2025.101342", "title": "Citizens perceptions of urban freight transport: an international comparison", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "João Guilherme da Costa Braga França", "Kinga Kijewska", "Stanisław Iwan", "Cassiano Augusto Isler", "Leise Kelli de Oliveira" ], "first_author": "João Guilherme da Costa Braga França", "venue": "Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "Urban freight transport is essential for cities as it facilitates the delivery of goods and services to meet stakeholder needs. However, it also creates challenges, including congestion, parking space occupation, pollution, and accidents involving freight vehicles. This paper employs partial least squares structural equation modeling to explore the cause-and-effect relationships between urban freight transport issues and initiatives from the citizens’ perspective. The study analyzes six causal relationships in two cities – Belo Horizonte, Brazil, representing the Global South, and Szczecin, Poland, representing the Global North – while considering their geographic, socioeconomic, and political contexts. The findings reveal that citizens’ perceptions of freight-related issues influence their views on city logistics initiatives and their perceived effectiveness In Belo Horizonte, infrastructure problems, particularly those related to pedestrian and cyclist safety, are considered more significant compared to Szczecin, where environmental issues, such as pollution, have a more prominent latent perception. The comparative analysis underscores causal relationships between urban flow challenges and freight problems, demonstrating that urban flow issues are more critical than infrastructure or environmental concerns in both cities. Differences also emerge in the perceived effectiveness of initiatives: while truck restrictions are highly valued in Belo Horizonte, loading and unloading areas and clearer signage are more impactful in Szczecin. Green initiatives show potential for promoting sustainable urban freight transport in both contexts. However, the limited variability in citizens’ responses, particularly in Szczecin, suggests a consensus on the relevance of the proposed initiatives. The results offer dual benefits: providing direct recommendations for Belo Horizonte and serving as a benchmark for Szczecin and other cities adopting an adaptive approach to urban logistics. These insights can guide policymakers in fostering efficient and sustainable urban freight transport through a participatory planning process in Global South and North.", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Perception", "Business", "Regional science", "Geography", "Engineering", "Psychology" ], "cited_by_count": 6, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2025.101342" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W645594779", "doi": null, "title": "URBAN FREIGHT TRANSPORT STRATEGY IN BRUSSELS", "year": 1998, "publication_date": "1998-09-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Wanda Debauche", "Hugues Duchâteau" ], "first_author": "Wanda Debauche", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "The study is carried out within the framework of a reformulation of the freight transport policy in Brussels. The aims of the study are to draw up a diagnosis of the present impacts of freight transport on the environment in Brussels, to identify the trends and to elaborate a global strategy to cope with the results of the diagnosis. The first question to be answered by the paper is to quantify the present impacts of freight transport on urban traffic. The main tool designed to answer this question is an urban traffic model simulating freight transport together with passenger trips in order to evaluate their non linear impacts on the general traffic conditions. The following procedure was followed: (1) modelling the demand generated by the private cars and the vans, the demand generated by the light lorries and the heavy lorries (2 user class); (2) assign, on a model of the road network, the total demand and calculate indicators of the present situation (total travelling time, total travelling length, total fuel consumption, average speed, traffic noise and pollutant emissions...); (3) assign on the same network model the demand generated by the private cars and the vans only and calculate the same indicators; and (4) analyse the difference in the indicators values between the two assignments as the impacts of the lorries traffic. For the covering abstract see IRRD E101781.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Transport engineering", "TRIPS architecture", "Fuel efficiency", "Transport network", "Traffic management", "Passenger transport", "Order (exchange)", "Operations research", "Computer science", "Environmental science", "Business" ], "cited_by_count": 5, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://trid.trb.org/view/506576" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4321063507", "doi": "10.1109/ictmod55867.2022.10041873", "title": "Optimization of Hybrid Truck-Drone Delivery Systems: A bibliometric analysis", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-11-23", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Batool Madani", "Malick Ndiaye" ], "first_author": "Batool Madani", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "With the continued rise of e-commerce, logistics providers' responsibility for tackling the last-mile delivery (LMD) challenge grows. The LMD is the most polluting, costly, and inefficient component of the e-commerce supply chain. As a result, logistics firms are looking for innovative ways to improve delivery operations. To help reduce LMD challenges, a hybrid truck-drone delivery system (HTDDS) has emerged, combining drones with conventional delivery trucks. This approach has gotten a lot of attention in the literature because of its ability to reduce costs, minimize the environmental impact, and boost customer satisfaction. As a result, the purpose of this research is to conduct a rigorous bibliometric and network analysis of the HTDDS modeling and optimization problems. The research identifies emerging styles in article and journal performance, collaboration patterns, and main research areas.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Truck", "Last mile (transportation)", "Supply chain", "Delivery Performance", "Computer science", "Component (thermodynamics)", "Business", "Operations research", "Process management", "Marketing", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 5, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1109/ictmod55867.2022.10041873" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4221030072", "doi": "10.1016/j.rtbm.2022.100799", "title": "Barriers to business model innovation in the Swedish urban freight transport sector", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-03-05", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Jon Williamsson", "Olof Moen" ], "first_author": "Jon Williamsson", "venue": "Research in Transportation Business & Management", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Business", "Business model", "Economic geography", "Industrial organization", "Marketing", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 11, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rtbm.2022.100799" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4404623456", "doi": "10.1209/0295-5075/ad9630", "title": "Scaling laws of urban heavy truck mobility", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-11-22", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Xiao-Zhe Pang", "Xu-Jie Lin", "Yitao Yang", "Erjian Liu", "Xiangyu Jia", "Ying-Yue Lv", "Zile Guo", "Yang Wang", "Xiao-Yong Yan" ], "first_author": "Xiao-Zhe Pang", "venue": "Europhysics Letters (EPL)", "publisher": "Institute of Physics", "abstract": "Abstract Heavy truck mobility is crucial in serving urban freight supply and demand, but it can also lead to traffic accidents, high energy consumption and pollutant emissions. Exploring the statistical characteristics of heavy truck mobility is highly important for efficiently managing cities and enhancing sustainable urban development. In this paper, we review some scaling laws of urban heavy truck mobility, including the allometry of urban heavy truck mobility and some scaling laws observed in collective mobility networks and individual mobility trajectories of urban heavy trucks. We also introduce models that explain the underlying mechanisms of these scaling laws. We further provide an outlook for future research on urban heavy truck mobility.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Scaling", "Scaling law", "Environmental science", "Business", "Engineering", "Automotive engineering", "Mathematics", "Geometry" ], "cited_by_count": 5, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/ad9630" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2283458463", "doi": null, "title": "Mitigating Urban Freight Through Effective Management of Truck Chassis", "year": 2016, "publication_date": "2016-02-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Thomas O’Brien", "Tyler D. Reeb", "Annette Kunitsa" ], "first_author": "Thomas O’Brien", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "This report assesses the development of a pooled chassis strategy for the Southern California goods movement sector - focusing on the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach - and its implications for urban and regional freight mobility. In the wake of decisions by ocean carriers to divest themselves of intermodal chassis, and as a result of increasing demand for chassis because of rising trade volumes and larger vessels calling at Southern California ports, the goods movement industry has experimented with alternative strategies for equipment management. One such strategy involves the establishment of a chassis pool involving three third-party equipment managers that operate their own independent pools in and around the San Pedro Bay. Under this model, truckers may obtain equipment from one of the three providers for use at marine terminals at both ports. The strategy has come to be known as the “pool of pools.” The authors use surveys and interviews with a variety of key stakeholders including truckers, marine terminal operators, the ports, rail companies, and chassis pool operators to better understand the incentives for these stakeholders to take part in shared equipment management strategies. The authors also develop process flows to capture port-driven supply chains before and after the development of the pool of pools. This project builds upon METRANS-funded research done on in-terminal chassis management practices at the Southern California ports.", "keywords": [ "Chassis", "Truck", "Port (circuit theory)", "Business", "Transport engineering", "Process (computing)", "Incentive", "Fleet management", "Operations management", "Engineering", "Computer science", "Economics" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/39809" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4396866964", "doi": "10.1080/00207543.2024.2351959", "title": "Performance estimation and operating policies in a truck-based autonomous mobile robot delivery system", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-05-12", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Yaohan Shen", "Bipan Zou", "René B.M. de Koster", "Tao Cheng" ], "first_author": "Yaohan Shen", "venue": "International Journal of Production Research", "publisher": "Taylor & Francis", "abstract": "Last-mile delivery is a costly and time-consuming process in e-commerce operations. Piloted by several companies, autonomous mobile robots cooperating with trucks have been implemented for parcel delivery. In this system, a truck departs from the warehouse, carrying robots and parcels, and traverses several drop-off points to release robots for parcel delivery or to deliver parcels by itself. We focus on performance estimation and system configuration, considering the no-zoning policy, where all trucks serve the whole delivery area and the zoning policy, where each truck takes charge of one zone. A queuing network is constructed to estimate the parcel throughput time and a cost minimisation model is developed for the system with a required throughput time. The optimal number of drop-off points and batch size can be numerically found to minimise the order throughput time. The zoning policy is cheaper than no-zoning policy for a small number of drop-off points and a short required throughput time, and it is cheaper in a system with a large number of drop-off points. Moreover, we find that while the truck-based autonomous mobile robot delivery system typically has a larger order throughput time than a delivery system using only robots, it is much less costly.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Mobile robot", "Computer science", "Estimation", "Robot", "Engineering", "Real-time computing", "Automotive engineering", "Systems engineering", "Artificial intelligence" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://pure.eur.nl/en/publications/b2000966-a784-451f-964b-2adc2870c997" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W658396532", "doi": null, "title": "MEASURES TO ENHANCE THE EFFICIENCY OF URBAN FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION IN HIROSHIMA CITY", "year": 1999, "publication_date": "1999-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Tsukasa Mizutani" ], "first_author": "Tsukasa Mizutani", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "This paper describes experimental studies, in Hiroshima City, Japan, on measures to enhance the efficiency of urban freight transportation. These include loading bays attached to bus bays; and using the loading apron for common use has been very effective in relieving traffic congestion and has been accepted by lorry drivers. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD E202211.", "keywords": [ "Transport engineering", "Traffic congestion", "Truck", "Business", "Environmental planning", "Engineering", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://trid.trb.org/view/658242" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2034846730", "doi": "10.1016/j.trpro.2015.01.006", "title": "Optimization of the FURBOT Urban Freight Transport Scheme", "year": 2015, "publication_date": "2015-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Elvezia Maria Cepolina", "Alessandro Farina" ], "first_author": "Elvezia Maria Cepolina", "venue": "Transportation research procedia", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "The paper refers to an innovative urban freight distribution scheme, aimed at reducing the externalities connected with the freight delivery process. Both packages destined to commercial activities and to end consumers (e-commerce) are taken into account. Each package is characterized by an address and dimensions. In the proposed transport system, freight is firstly delivered to the urban distribution centre on the border of urban areas through trucks or trains which perform the long distance transport. After, freight is reorganized and consolidated into special load units (FURBOT boxes), according to packages dimensions and to the addresses of receivers. Each box is addressed to a temporary unloading bay and it is delivered there by a smalllelectrically powered vehicle (FURBOT vehicle). The paper concerns a methodology for optimizing this freight transport system's performances. The input data are the actual freight demand, the road network and the public policies. The methodology determines the best number of FURBOT boxes which minimizes the system cost. The overall cost is a sum of the users cost, which depends on the distance they have to walk for collecting their packages in the FURBOT box, and of the operator cost, which depends on the number of boxes, and the total distance travelled by the FURBOT vehicles. The minimization problem has been approached by a Simulated Annealing procedure. The methodology recalls two sub-problems: a first sub-problem to determine the optimum clustering of packages in the FURBOT boxes, and a second sub problem to determine the best routing of FURBOT vehicles. The methodology has been applied to the case study of Genoa city centre, Italy.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Simulated annealing", "Train", "Minification", "Cluster analysis", "Vehicle routing problem", "Computer science", "Process (computing)", "Public transport", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Operations research" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352146515000071/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4406605484", "doi": "10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2025.104125", "title": "Explaining the dynamics and identifying potential risks of hazardous materials truck movements", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-01-20", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Zhaoxiang Li", "Xu Ma", "Ruixu Pan", "Chao Yang", "Quan Yuan" ], "first_author": "Zhaoxiang Li", "venue": "Journal of Transport Geography", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "Hazardous waste", "Transport engineering", "Dynamics (music)", "Forensic engineering", "Engineering", "Waste management", "Psychology", "Automotive engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2025.104125" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W839487714", "doi": null, "title": "AN EVALUATION METHODOLOGY FOR CITY LOGISTICS. IN: TRANSPORT LOGISTICS", "year": 2002, "publication_date": "2002-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "E Taniguchi", "Recm van der Heijden" ], "first_author": "E Taniguchi", "venue": "Classics in Transport Analysis", "publisher": null, "abstract": "The paper presents a methodology for evaluating several city logistics initiatives using dynamic traffic simulation with optimal routing and scheduling. Several logistics initiatives have been proposed, such as: advanced information systems; cooperative freight transportation systems; public logistics terminals; load factor controls; and underground freight transportation systems. Three logistics systems were evaluated: introducing advanced routing and scheduling systems; implementing a cooperative freight transport system; and controlling the load factor of pickup/delivery trucks in urban areas. The main criterion for the evaluation used in this paper was carbon dioxide emissions produced by delivery vehicles when the demand for freight transport at customers was increased.", "keywords": [ "Traffic management", "City logistics", "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Scheduling (production processes)", "Vehicle routing problem", "Green logistics", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Computer science", "Business", "Operations research", "Environmental economics" ], "cited_by_count": 8, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=663977" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2269900350", "doi": "10.24006/jilt.2011.9.1.006", "title": "Selecting a Location for a City Logistics Facility: A Fuzzy Synthetic Evaluation Method", "year": 2011, "publication_date": "2011-06-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Yan Zhang", "김화중", "Oh Kyoung Kwon" ], "first_author": "Yan Zhang", "venue": "Journal of International Logistics and Trade", "publisher": null, "abstract": "The strategic location of city logistics facilities may help to establish more efficient urban logistics systems, reduce social and environmental costs of urban freight transport, and improve urban traffic conditions. In addition, it may allow a number of shippers or freight carriers to jointly operate freight vehicles and terminals or information systems while allowing them to have the capability to provide higher levels of services to their customers. This paper considers the problem of selecting a location for a city logistics facility while considering linguistic factors. This paper identifies the important factors in the selection of a location for a city logistics facility by performing a case study which applies the analytic hierarchy process method on data from Chongqing, China. The optimal location in Chongqing is then determined by using the fuzzy synthetic evaluation method. The results of this paper are expected to help municipal governments select appropriate locations for city logistics facilities and quantify the advantages and disadvantages of alternative locations.", "keywords": [ "City logistics", "Analytic hierarchy process", "Facility location problem", "Fuzzy logic", "Logistics center", "Process (computing)", "Transport engineering", "Traffic management", "Computer science", "Site selection", "Business", "Operations research" ], "cited_by_count": 8, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "http://www.ejilt.org/download/download_pdf?pid=jilt-9-1-115" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W7127066318", "doi": "10.1016/j.tre.2026.104712", "title": "A carbon reduction incentive model for crowdsourced urban freight: Facilitating freight pooling and electric truck adoption", "year": 2026, "publication_date": "2026-02-02", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Siqi Shu", "Xinyue Yang", "Zhuang Ming", "Xiaoxiang Na", "Marc E. J. Stettler", "Der‐Horng Lee", "Simon Hu" ], "first_author": "Siqi Shu", "venue": "Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Incentive", "Truck", "Pooling", "Heuristic", "Incentive program", "Cost reduction", "Electric vehicle" ], "cited_by_count": 2, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2026.104712" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4367178044", "doi": "10.4324/9781003241478-23", "title": "Policy and Planning for Urban Logistics", "year": 2023, "publication_date": "2023-04-27", "type": "book-chapter", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Lætitia Dablanc" ], "first_author": "Lætitia Dablanc", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "This chapter presents nine “best practices” in urban logistics policies, each represented by a city. These initiatives were chosen because they have an interesting cost/benefit balance. They include freight consultation forums, low- and zero-emission zones, the promotion of clean delivery vehicles, road pricing, off-hour deliveries, curbside management, urban planning, support for innovative start-ups, and new methods for freight data collection. For each of the described initiatives, when possible, the specific case of urban logistics policies in cities of developing countries is presented, drawing from recent research results. Clean delivery vehicles are varied and include zero-emission trucks and vans, electric mopeds, cargo cycles, but also pedestrian deliveries, and delivery robots or robot-assisted deliveries. The concomitant development of large logistics facilities at the edge of metropolitan areas and urban warehouses within central areas require new types of land use planning and construction policies: regional spatial logistics planning on the one hand; and urban zoning promoting environment-friendly urban warehouses on the other hand.", "keywords": [ "Business", "Environmental planning", "Regional science", "Geography" ], "cited_by_count": 6, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003241478-23" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4394680465", "doi": "10.3390/su16083144", "title": "Long-Term Planning for a Mixed Urban Freight Fleet with EVs and ICEVs in the USA", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-04-10", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Panagiota Goulianou", "Amelia Regan", "Anne Goodchild" ], "first_author": "Panagiota Goulianou", "venue": "Sustainability", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "Commercial electric vehicles (EVs) have increasingly gained interest from urban freight companies in the past decade due to the introduction of economic and policy drivers. Although these factors promote urban freight electrification, some barriers hinder the transition to fully electric fleets, such as the significant monetary investment required to replace the current internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV) and the lack of readily available electric freight vehicles. Due to these barriers, for the foreseeable future, urban freight companies will operate mixed fleets with a combination of EVs and ICEVs to balance their cost/benefit trade-offs. This intermediate operational stage will allow companies to adjust their operations, test EVs, and decide if a fully electric fleet is the best choice. This paper focuses on urban last-mile deliveries in the USA and proposes a long-term planning model to explore the effects of external factors (i.e., fuel costs) on planning decisions (i.e., EV share) for a mixed fleet. In the context of this paper long-term planning is the planning for the infrastructure needed for the introduction of EVs (i.e., fleet composition and charging station location). The goal of the proposed model is to minimize the fuel, EV, ICEV, and EV charger costs. The results show that the EV share of a mixed fleet is affected by gasoline and electricity prices and the distances traveled in a given network. This paper shows that the EV share of a mixed fleet increases when the gasoline cost increases and the electricity cost decreases.", "keywords": [ "Term (time)", "Transport engineering", "Environmental science", "Business", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/8/3144/pdf?version=1712728889" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W5540792", "doi": "10.1108/9780080473222-025", "title": "New concepts for city logistics", "year": 2004, "publication_date": "2004-07-22", "type": "book-chapter", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Joan C. Rijsenbrij" ], "first_author": "Joan C. Rijsenbrij", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "The continuing urbanization, the still increasing cargo distribution volumes towards the city centers and the spectacular growth in road transportation are deteriorating the traffic situation in large cities, and so a heavy threat for fast, predictable and cost-effective city logistics. Now is the time to develop new standardized logistic concepts, including the use of all available modes of transport. Standardized city boxes, vehicles, handling equipment and city access rules will support the interchangeability within logistic networks and will encourage the implementation of new concepts for city logistics offering a better service for equal or even lower costs. Shuttle concepts for road-bound distribution will result in better vehicle utilization, less environmental impact and better quality of life. Furthermore, rail-bound systems for the combined transport of passengers and freight have a large potential for regional and city-bound cargo distribution.For area's with a suitable waterways network, barge transportation can be used both for long-haul and bi-modal (barge-truck) city logistics.Partnerships between transportation companies, retailers, logistic providers and local/regional authorities will be required to introduce new logistic concepts. These will be necessary to maintain efficient city logistics and to improve the quality of life in the cities.", "keywords": [ "City logistics", "Business", "Engineering", "Transport engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 6, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1108/9780080473222-025" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W827413940", "doi": null, "title": "Urban freight economics : A new rail paradigm for large lots", "year": 2001, "publication_date": "2001-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Thomas F. Erickson" ], "first_author": "Thomas F. Erickson", "venue": "Transportation Journal", "publisher": "Penn State University Press", "abstract": "The generalization that trucks are more efficient for short-haul freight than railcars does not pertain where shipment size and complementary traffic levels are sufficiently large. In particular, there appear to be enormous opportunities for the competitive movement of truckload- and larger-sized lots by rail within urban areas, which have a sufficient concentration of freight activity to justify minimum right-of-way maintenance and reliable switching service on industrial branch lines. The recognition of this urban rail opportunity, in an age of escalating road degradation and congestion, would have far-reaching implications for regulators, urban planners, and rail management, all of whom have heretofore assumed that railroads' urban future lies only in disgorging trucks onto the urban road network from intermodal terminals.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Transport engineering", "Service (business)", "Urban rail", "Traffic management", "Traffic congestion", "Business", "Rail traffic", "Engineering", "Marketing", "Automotive engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://trid.trb.org/view/687641" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W7117165054", "doi": "10.1016/j.cie.2025.111786", "title": "Multi-objective optimization of a truck–drone delivery system for fair and efficient humanitarian logistics under disruption and disinformation", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-12-24", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Ramin Talebi Khameneh", "Nafiseh Ghorbani-Renani", "José Emmanuel Ramírez-Márquez" ], "first_author": "Ramin Talebi Khameneh", "venue": "Computers & Industrial Engineering", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Humanitarian aid", "Multi-objective optimization", "Stackelberg competition", "Humanitarian Logistics", "Pareto principle", "Sorting", "Drone", "Resilience (materials science)", "Genetic algorithm" ], "cited_by_count": 9, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2025.111786" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W3016997339", "doi": "10.1016/j.procs.2020.03.167", "title": "Tour Pattern Choice Modelling and Simulation of Freight Trucks in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area", "year": 2020, "publication_date": "2020-01-01", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Hideki Oka", "Daisuke Fukuda", "Takemi Shinohara" ], "first_author": "Hideki Oka", "venue": "Procedia Computer Science", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": "The tour pattern choice behaviour of urban freight trucks in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area is analysed. We formulate an econometric-based travel choice model under the framework of recursive-logit modelling by which it is possible to describe the spatiotemporal choice behaviour of freight trucks that eventually return to their base facilities or zones after repeating sequential destination choices in traveling to their customers’ locations. Model parameters are estimated using a rich dataset of Global Positioning System trajectories for trucks and most signs of coefficients of parameters match intuition. We finally simulate changes in the travel patterns of freight trucks when a time-dependent area charging scheme is implemented in city centre of Tokyo.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "Metropolitan area", "Computer science", "Transport engineering", "Intuition", "Operations research", "Logit", "Geography", "Mathematics", "Machine learning", "Automotive engineering", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187705092030630X/pdf" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2029270442", "doi": "10.1680/tran.12.00017", "title": "Time, cost and carbon dioxide benefits – rescheduling urban freight operations", "year": 2014, "publication_date": "2014-01-17", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Gerald J. Aschauer", "Friedrich Starkl" ], "first_author": "Gerald J. Aschauer", "venue": "Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Transport", "publisher": "Thomas Telford Ltd.", "abstract": "Currently, road infrastructure reaches capacity limits during rush hour periods, resulting in severe congestion and bottlenecks. This is particularly true in urban areas. As road capacity cannot be extended to match projected traffic growth, innovative organisational solutions need to be developed. The research project provides a method for removing truck traffic from rush hour periods through a co-operative approach among road operators and industry. The method concentrates on rescheduling lorry trips in and out of urban areas. Traffic simulation is used to reschedule trucks, saving time and costs and reducing emissions. The first part of the paper gives an introduction and description of the developed method. The second part of the paper consists of the presentation of the effects and results of tested scenarios with this new tool. The method results in road capacity being used more efficiently while capital expenditure for road construction can be avoided or at least postponed. Furthermore, the elimination or at least reduction of congestion and bottlenecks leads to competitive advantages for industry, business parks and the entire urban area, and also benefits the environment. For all stakeholders, reducing bottlenecks and congestion within economic regions through organisational action is the task for the future.", "keywords": [ "Truck", "TRIPS architecture", "Transport engineering", "Traffic congestion", "Business", "Rush hour", "Task (project management)", "Computer science", "Environmental economics", "Economics", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 6, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1680/tran.12.00017" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2906924339", "doi": "10.3390/su11010124", "title": "A Stakeholder-Based Evaluation of the Most Suitable and Sustainable Delivery Fleet for Freight Consolidation Policies in the Inner-City Area", "year": 2018, "publication_date": "2018-12-27", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Khalid Aljohani", "Russell George Thompson" ], "first_author": "Khalid Aljohani", "venue": "Sustainability", "publisher": "Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute", "abstract": "Freight carriers, receivers and citizens in the inner-city area suffer the most from issues impacting last mile delivery due to exacerbated traffic congestion, limited parking and unsustainable delivery vehicles. Freight consolidation policies offer a sustainable solution to address these problems. The freight vehicles used in the consolidated deliveries could play a significant role in the sustainability and success of these policies. This paper applies a multi-stakeholder decision support approach to evaluate the suitability and potential of various delivery fleet configurations in addressing the perspectives and requirements of all stakeholders involved in last mile delivery to perform the consolidated delivery in the inner-city area. The Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA) framework was utilised to assess and rank various delivery configurations involving a combination of eco-friendly delivery vans, trucks and cargobikes based on the objectives of the stakeholders. The weight allocation of the criteria was determined through the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (F-AHP) method using responses collected from key actors representing all stakeholder groups in Melbourne, Australia. The multi-stakeholder analysis, which was performed using the Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) method, suggested that the consolidated delivery should be performed using a combination of eco-friendly delivery vans and cargobikes to incorporate the concerns of the societal stakeholders and operational requirements of the business stakeholders. The mono-actor analysis revealed the heterogeneity of the stakeholders’ preferences and clashing views regarding the optimal delivery fleet. This highlights the importance of incorporating a multi-stakeholder perspective in the planning and selection of suitable urban freight policies. Accordingly, a suitable implementation plan for the consolidated delivery fleet was proposed to reflect the perspectives and requirements of these stakeholders.", "keywords": [ "Stakeholder", "Analytic hierarchy process", "Sustainability", "Last mile (transportation)", "Integrated project delivery", "Multiple-criteria decision analysis", "Delivery Performance", "Ranking (information retrieval)", "Business", "Consolidation (business)", "Transport engineering", "Environmental economics" ], "cited_by_count": 79, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/1/124/pdf?version=1545889023" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4415424785", "doi": "10.1016/j.cie.2025.111624", "title": "Deep reinforcement learning for drone-assisted truck delivery route optimization in a time-dependent network with time windows", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-10-22", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Yong Peng", "Jing Huang", "Dennis Z. Yu", "Ajinkya N. Tanksale", "Pengfei Gu" ], "first_author": "Yong Peng", "venue": "Computers & Industrial Engineering", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Reinforcement learning", "Truck", "Flexibility (engineering)", "Traffic congestion", "Markov decision process", "Vehicle routing problem", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Drone", "Variable neighborhood search" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2025.111624" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4308175318", "doi": "10.1016/j.trb.2022.10.011", "title": "Rich arc routing problem in city logistics: Models and solution algorithms using a fluid queue-based time-dependent travel time representation", "year": 2022, "publication_date": "2022-11-04", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Jiawei Lu", "Qinghui Nie", "Monirehalsadat Mahmoudi", "Jishun Ou", "Chongnan Li", "Xuesong Simon Zhou" ], "first_author": "Jiawei Lu", "venue": "Transportation Research Part B Methodological", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Queue", "Arc routing", "Representation (politics)", "Arc (geometry)", "Computer science", "Algorithm", "Routing (electronic design automation)", "Mathematics", "Computer network", "Geometry" ], "cited_by_count": 25, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trb.2022.10.011" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4412937623", "doi": "10.1016/j.ijhydene.2025.150806", "title": "Design and study of the effects of retrofitting diesel engines in hydrogen trucks through simulation", "year": 2025, "publication_date": "2025-08-04", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Sebastián Bibiloni-Ipata", "Vitor Vielmo-Cogo", "Geovane Prante", "Santiago Martínez-Boggio" ], "first_author": "Sebastián Bibiloni-Ipata", "venue": "International Journal of Hydrogen Energy", "publisher": "Elsevier BV", "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Truck", "Retrofitting", "Automotive engineering", "Diesel fuel", "Environmental science", "Computer science", "Waste management", "Engineering", "Structural engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 7, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2025.150806" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W2157643147", "doi": "10.3141/2478-07", "title": "Impacts of Urban Logistics Measures on Multiple Actors and Decision Layers", "year": 2015, "publication_date": "2015-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Gernot Thorsten Liedtke", "Tilman Matteis", "Wisinee Wisetjindawat" ], "first_author": "Gernot Thorsten Liedtke", "venue": "Transportation Research Record Journal of the Transportation Research Board", "publisher": "SAGE Publishing", "abstract": "An approach for a multiagent model on urban commodity transport is presented. Special attention is paid to the relationship between shippers and carriers. Shippers choose lot sizes, and they commission one or several carriers. Carriers consolidate shipments in hub-and-spoke-transport networks or in en route pickup and delivery tours. Shippers and carriers interact in a transport market where carriers submit offers to the shippers. The effects of urban transport policy measures are transmitted to the ultimate decision makers in transport—the shippers—via prices. Transport tariffs are calculated on the basis of full cost using an activity-based costing schema. The model assesses the effects of a cordon toll in the Tokyo metropolitan area to shippers and carriers. In particular, it analyzes the impacts on market shares and the spatiotemporal structure of truck flows.", "keywords": [ "Metropolitan area", "Business", "Toll", "Activity-based costing", "Industrial organization", "Truck", "Commission", "Transport engineering", "Commodity", "Transport network", "Environmental economics", "Operations research" ], "cited_by_count": 9, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.3141/2478-07" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W4405909329", "doi": "10.1109/wf-iot62078.2024.10811216", "title": "Green and Intelligent Planning of Drone Launch in Truck-Drone Collaborative Delivery", "year": 2024, "publication_date": "2024-11-10", "type": "conference-paper", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Didem Cicek", "Murat Şimşek", "Burak Kantarcı" ], "first_author": "Didem Cicek", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": "The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm has enabled innovative applications across various domains, significantly enhancing efficiency in the transportation sector through intelligence-driven and sustainable solutions. In the field of parcel delivery, the integration of trucks and drones has attracted considerable attention from both academia and industry as a means to optimize logistics networks and reduce last-mile delivery costs. Traditionally, research on truck-drone collaborative delivery (TDCD) has focused on routing and scheduling problems within hypothetical scenarios. This study, however, seeks to address the problem using a more realistic approach by introducing a newly generated customer order dataset, which includes data from 191 customer locations over a span of 7 days. The goal is to evaluate the efficiency of drone deliveries assisted by trucks. Utilizing this dataset, we applied the Self-Organizing Feature Map (SOFM) algorithm, a type of artificial neural network, to the TDCD problem. This novel approach identifies the optimal location for truck-based drone launches to minimize overall travel distance. Thanks to its adaptive nature, the SOFM algorithm dynamically selects the launch location based on daily customer orders rather than relying on a static, predetermined site. This method has resulted in a 4.4% reduction in the total distance traveled by drones and a $\\mathbf{1. 1 \\%}$ reduction in the distance covered by trucks over the seven-day period. These efficiencies translate into savings of $30.28 \\mathrm{gCO2}$ in carbon emissions and 80.16 Wh of energy consumption, equivalent to 288.58 Kjoules.", "keywords": [ "Drone", "Aeronautics", "Truck", "Computer science", "Aerospace engineering", "Engineering" ], "cited_by_count": 5, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://doi.org/10.1109/wf-iot62078.2024.10811216" }, { "id": "https://openalex.org/W162425078", "doi": null, "title": "Travel characteristics of urban freight vehicles and their effects on air quality", "year": 2004, "publication_date": "2004-01-01", "type": "article", "language": "en", "authors": [ "Annie Protopapas" ], "first_author": "Annie Protopapas", "venue": null, "publisher": null, "abstract": null, "keywords": [ "Quality (philosophy)", "Air quality index", "Transport engineering", "Business", "Engineering", "Geography", "Meteorology" ], "cited_by_count": 1, "is_retracted": false, "is_paratext": false, "open_access_url": "https://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3825&context=utk_graddiss" } ]