Enabling a Freight Traffic Controller for Collaborative Multidrop Urban Logistics

Abstract

There is increasing interest into how horizontal collaboration between parcel carriers might help alleviate problems associated with last-mile logistics in congested urban centres. Through a detailed examination of parcel logistics literature pertaining to collaboration, along with practical insights from carriers operating in the UK, this paper examines the challenges that will be faced in optimising multi-carrier, multi-drop collection and delivery schedules. We propose the concept of the 'Freight Traffic Controller' (FTC) who would be a trusted third-party, assigned to equitably manage the work allocation between collaborating carriers and the passage of vehicles over the last mile where joint benefits to the parties were achievable. Creating this FTC requires a combinatorial optimisation approach to evaluate the many combinations of hub locations, network configuration and vehicle/walking routing options in order to find the true value of each potential collaboration, whilst at the same time, considering the traffic, social and environmental impacts of these activities. Cooperative game theory is a way to investigate the formation of collaborations (or coalitions) and our analysis identifies a significant shortfall in current applications of this theory to last-mile parcel logistics. Specifically, we identify that application of theory to urban freight logistics has, thus far, failed to account for critical concerns including: i) the mismatch of vehicle parking locations relative to actual delivery addresses; ii) the combination of deliveries with collections, the latter often being received in real-time during the round; and iii) the variability in travel times and route options due to traffic and road network conditions. Allen, Bektas, Cherrett, Friday, McLeod, Piecyk, Piotrowska, Zaltz Austwick 3 INTRODUCTIONThe parcel distribution sector is a crowded and highly competitive marketplace characterised by low profit margins and a proliferation of operators, with carriers typically operating independently from each other, leading to poor vehicle utilisation rates and delivery rounds that overlap (1). With this duplication of effort, as 'everyone delivers everywhere', and the need to reduce CO 2 in urban centres, driven by EU legislation (2), there is a need to fundamentally reinvestigate the efficiency of 'customer-focused' last-mile city logistics operations. We make three contributions in this paper: firstly, we offer a detailed examination of the literature pertaining to collaboration in last-mile parcel logistics; secondly, using our survey along with practical insights from two carrier operations in the UK, we identify key challenges that will be faced in attempting to best optimise multi-carrier, multi-drop collection and delivery schedules whilst maintaining an equitable distribution of work between the parties in the collaboration; finally, we highlight the significant gap between current theory and practice in this regard and introduce the concept of the Freight Traffic Controller as a ...

ICT for Sustainable Last-Mile Logistics: Data, People and Parcels

“…Whilst their model demonstrates how a 'hub and spoke' model can be used to prioritise timed deliveries optimally, their assumptions do not capture the complexity in the final stages of a delivery where the driver successfully finds a parking location, navigates from the parking location to the delivery address and locates the final delivery destination of the parcel within a building. This last step can be particularly complex in built up urban environments where parking is limited, dense urban buildings are harder to navigate, and buildings are multipurpose and multistory [3,2,5].…”

“…Such mapping may be of use both to local authorities in their planning of kerbside space utilisation and to carriers when planning vehicle schedules and routes. Parcel carrier operations typically involve considerable time spent walking between customers while the vehicle is parked by the roadside [3] and better knowledge of how to cluster groups of consignees could help them identify more optimal locations to park, as a base for the walking operations. Most of the activity hot spots (Figure 4) appeared to be in areas of mixed land use with multi-tenanted offices, shops, restaurants and hotels, including those on Oxford Street, Regent Street and opposite Portman Square (Figure 1).…”

“…At present, the vehicle routing and delivery/collection task is usually left entirely to the driver's discretion, as vehicle routing software, for example, is typically not useful as walking options are not usually considered [3].…”

“…52), pp. [49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67] Parcels are transported using freight transport vehicles such as trucks, lorries and vans, making up around 16% of total road vehicle activity in urban environments in the UK [3]. Light goods vehicles (LGVs)…”

“…In the context of this paper, last mile parcel deliveries are used to described the final journey made by a parcel between the local depot and the end recipient in the urban logistics network. A shift towards online shopping and convenient 'one-click' access to on-demand services and shopping combined with low or even zero cost delivery services is accelerating the demand placed on last mile logistics networks and carriers [3,44]. These low cost, loss leading and 'apparently free' deliveries squeeze margins across the logistics sector [55,18,33,37] as the industry competes for market share [2,14], making investment in workers [39,58] and more sustainable alternatives difficult.…”