Planning hyperconnected, urban logistics systems

ABSTRACT: We examine an innovative system for organizing deliveries in a collaborative fashion for an n-tier hyperconnected city logistics system. We focus on the tactical planning of services within the first tier of the system, i.e., from external zones generally located on the outskirts of the city (logistics platforms, urban/city distribution/consolidation centers, etc.) to satellites from which goods are distributed to final customers, and introduce a new optimization model for that purpose. The key distinctive feature of this model is that we consider a coalition of carriers and logistic operators who share their resources (fleets of vehicles and warehousing capacity) and information flows to provide more effective services, thus lowering costs and environmental impact. Preliminary computational results confirm the attractiveness of the envisioned system