A Multimodal Passenger-and-Package Sharing Network for Urban Logistics

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.

Implementation of Urban Logistics Systems

“…At the core of the consolidation of logistics services is the bundling and sharing of all types of resources among various LSPs, letting a cross-company network of usually competing firms emerge. The consolidation takes place in periphery, macro-or micro-hubs, also known as urban consolidation centers or urban distribution centers, see, for instance, Nordtømme et al (2015) or Ji et al (2020). These hubs can either be at a fixed location, mostly in the case of macro-hubs, or be flexible in terms of location.…”

New Development Direction of Underground Logistics from the Perspective of Public Transport: A Systematic Review Based on Scientometrics

“…Zhou et al [39] studied routing optimization of subwayfreight truck intermodal transportation. Ji et al [100] evaluated M-ULS network performance from two perspectives: the number of hubs and the proportion of taxi drivers willing to carry packages. Fan et al [45], Pan et al [102], and Gao et al [101] designed the terminal intermodal mode of a UCTS and planned the corresponding operation process.…”

Freight-on-Transit for Urban Last-Mile Deliveries: A Strategic Planning Approach

“…To the best of our knowledge, very few among the existing articles study the strategic network design questions, i.e., how to select a subset of public transport buses and stations for freight transportation. We found three papers that propose MIP formulations: two of them model hub location problems ( [22] and [34]) and one models a location-routing problem ( [19]). In [22], packages are transported by metro between the hubs, and by taxis or trucks between stores and hubs.…”

“…We found three papers that propose MIP formulations: two of them model hub location problems ( [22] and [34]) and one models a location-routing problem ( [19]). In [22], packages are transported by metro between the hubs, and by taxis or trucks between stores and hubs. In [34], same-day delivery during off-peak hours is performed using subway, and the model aims again at locating the metro hubs with a p-median facility location model, with a case study in Shanghai.…”