Collaborative urban transportation: Recent advances in theory and practice

Catherine Cleophas (Corresponding Author), Caitlin Cottrill, Jan Fabian Ehmke, Kevin Tierney

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

203 Citations (Scopus)
28 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Increasing urbanization has turned transporting freight from, to, and within urban areas into a major challenge. Freight transportation represents a lifeline for urban retail and industry, but causes significant negative impacts on the quality of living in urban areas in terms of congestion, emissions and space consumption. City logistics initiatives have long suggested the need for collaborative and environmentally friendly urban transportation that could alleviate the negative impacts of urban transportation, but these face organizational and technological challenges of collaboration. Given technological advancements and innovative business models, concepts of collaborative urban transportation could contribute to a future paradigm of more sustainable and customer-friendly urban transportation.

In this work, we collect and discuss contributions to collaborative freight transportation in urban areas with focus on recent publications (i.e. those published over the past ten years). We particularly analyze vertical and horizontal approaches of collaboration from an operations research perspective and point out strategic, tactical, and operational planning problems and solution approaches. To highlight research gaps and future research opportunities, we present innovative examples of collaborative urban transportation and analyze factors of failure and success. Collecting recent advances in theory and practice of collaborative urban transportation allows us to distill alternative visions of future collaborative freight transportation in urban areas.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)801-816
Number of pages16
JournalEuropean Journal of Operational Research
Volume273
Issue number3
Early online date25 Apr 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Mar 2019

Bibliographical note

We thank the Leibniz Association for sponsoring the Dagstuhl Seminar 16091, at which the work presented here was initiated. We also thank Leena Suhl for her comments on an early version of this work. Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers for the constructive comments.

Keywords

  • urban logistics
  • collaborative transportation
  • review
  • collaboration
  • Urban logistics
  • FREIGHT TRANSPORT
  • Collaborative transportation
  • Review
  • LAST MILE DELIVERY
  • A-RIDE PROBLEM
  • VEHICLE-ROUTING PROBLEM
  • LARGE NEIGHBORHOOD SEARCH
  • Collaboration
  • COST ALLOCATION
  • ELECTRIC VEHICLES
  • TIME WINDOWS
  • HORIZONTAL COOPERATION
  • SCENARIO ASSESSMENT

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