Tuesday, 4th December 2018
Call for Papers: Special Issue on Urban Freight Logistics (Annals of Operations Research)
This is a call for papers that make a significant contribution to the topic Simulation and Optimization to Facilitate Sustainable Urban Freight Logistics Operations. It is open to all researchers of this area. We wouldlike to encourage, in particular, all participants of the International Multidisciplinary Modeling & SimulationMulticonference (I3M 2018) held in Budapest, 17 to19 September 2018, to submit extended versions of their presented papers. Contributions arising from papers given at a conference should besubstantially extended, and should citethe conference paper where appropriate.
Background:
Urbanization, congestion, traffic restrictions, and limited parking spaces challenge freight logistics providers, while customers increasingly purchase products online and demand faster services, such as same-day deliveries at little to no extra costs. In recent years, a wide range of promising business models have originated from this problem setting, including concepts such as cargo-bike deliveries, e-mobility, and urban consolidation strategies to enable efficient last-mile distribution of goods. Given various sources of uncertainty present in such daily operations (e.g., unsuccessful delivery attempts, dynamic traffic and parking situations), related problem settings present complex research topics and are, consequently, of high interest to various stakeholders such as researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers.
In this context, computer-aided computer systems facilitating simulation and/or optimization methods have become promising methods to investigate and optimize real-world processes. Such tools allow one to investigate operations in a flexible and risk-free manner to design operations and, furthermore, enable the optimization of existing solutions through better planning and routing procedures. This special issue is dedicated to recent advances and original solution approaches exploring research and applications of simulation and optimization methods in urban logistics and supply chain management. A particular focus is set on sustainable solutions considering economic, environmental, and social impacts of proposed solution methods and software systems to facilitate an improved understanding of sustainable urban logistics operations.
The main topics of interest are:
- Last-mile distribution and city logistics concepts
- Multi-actor crowdsourced deliveries systems
- Sustainable commercial modes of transport such as cargo-bikes and e-mobility
- Urban consolidation strategies at micro-hubs
- Loading, unloading, and transshipment systems dedicated to urban operations
- Time slot management
- Omni-channeling including click & collect and various home-delivery concepts
- Environmental, social, and transport policy aspects of freight logistics operations
Guest Editors:
- Dr Christian Fikar
WU Vienna university of Economics and Business
Email: christian.fikar@wu.ac.at
- Prof. Dr. Manfred Gronalt
BOKU – University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna
Email: manfred.gronalt@boku.ac.at
- Prof. Dr. Francesco Longo
DIMEG, University of Calabria, Rende (CS), Italy
Email: francesco.longo@unical.it
More info can be found at:
https://christianfikar.com/2018/12/04/cfp-urban-freight-logistics/