Game—The Beer Transportation Game: How to Decarbonize Logistics by Moving Freight to Sustainable Transport Modes

Abstract

Moving freight to sustainable transport modes is one of the most frequently mentioned suggestions to decarbonize logistics. Regrettably, even with regulation and technology developing over the past years, most of the freight volumes are still shipped via road, the least sustainable means of transport. This paper presents a beer transportation game to support logistics decarbonization via a modal shift from road to rail. In the game, student teams play the role of a logistics manager of a beer brewer and decide on the transport mode and shipment volume from the brewery to a distribution center. Their decisions are evaluated by the impact on total logistics costs and emissions. The game consists of two rounds, each with a student participation part and a lecturer debriefing part. The first round helps students understand why firms are often reluctant to shift freight from road to the low-emission transport mode (e.g., rail), and the second round encourages students to overcome the obstacles and helps them design practical approaches to alter the modal split in favor of rail transport. The game can be sealed into a 90-minute session and incorporated into any courses covering the topic of sustainable logistics or supply chain management.

The application of Industry 4.0 technologies in sustainable logistics: a systematic literature review (2012–2020) to explore future research opportunities

“…Data-driven optimization has also been used in the sustainable planning of multimodal transportation (Sun et al 2018). Through the data-driven capacity balancing and optimization of different transportation modes, the use of low-carbon and environmentally friendly transportation modes has been drastically increased, e.g., a shift from road to rail transport (Dong and Boute 2020), without a significant compromise on cost-effectiveness.…”