The use of cargo cycles for last-mile parcel distribution requires urban micro-consolidation centers (UMC). We develop an approach to localize suitable locations for UMCs with the consideration of three criteria: demand, land use, and type of road. The analysis considers metric levels (demand), linguistic levels (land use), and cardinal levels (type of road). The land-use category is divided into commercial, residential, mixed commercial and residential, and others. The type of road category is divided into bicycle road, pedestrian zone, oneway road, and traffic-calmed road. The approach is a hybrid multi-criteria analysis combining an Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) and PROMETHEE methods. We apply the approach to the city center of Stuttgart in Germany, using real demand data provided by a large logistics service provider. We compared different scenarios weighting the criteria differently with DART software. The different weight allocation results in different numbers of required UMCs and slightly different locations. This research was able to develop, implement, and successfully apply the proposed approach. In subsequent steps, stakeholders such as logistics companies and cities should be involved at all levels of this approach to validate the selected criteria and depict the “weight” of each criterion.
In recent years, new forms of consumption alternative to conventional food systems have emerged across the world. These consumption patterns advocate consumption of local products, quality and the distribution with maximum one intermediary between the producer and the consumer or ideally nil. The objective of these consumption patterns, which is distributed through short food supply chain, is to reduce the externalities caused by conventional consumption modes. Many authors have shown, through analysis of case studies that the consumption of local products is not reducing automatically the negative externalities. The short food supply chain still faces many challenges in order to constitute a real alternative to the globalized food model. Among these challenges, the logistics is currently the main bottleneck for the development of this sector. The logistics become even more complex when it occurs in urban areas. The objective of this paper is to understand the specificities and the constraints of the short food supply chain in order to design suitable logistic solutions to improve short food supply chain performance.
Urban Consolidation Centres (UCCs) are a popular measure in city logistics, but many of the UCC projects are granted only a short life. These facilities are often view as creating benefits for the society and costs for the private sector. Recent research and experiences show however that additional value-added activities performed in these platforms are able to increase the attractiveness of these city logistics schemes. This paper proposes the application of the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model in order to assess the impact of the UCCs on the overall supply chain performance. Authors first perform a review of current evaluation techniques for the UCC projects and highlight the relevance of a supply chain focused approach. They present the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model and discuss its relevance for the evaluation of UCC projects. They then analyse 10 recent UCC case studies which leads to highlighting the existence of three distinct operating models. Finally, they apply the SCOR model to the different UCC operating models. The study confirms the UCCs on the reliability, responsiveness and agility of the supply chains. This brings an innovative aspect to the UCC projects evaluation which traditionally only focuses on cost, environmental or asset utilisation related metrics.
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