Analysis of Selected Solutions for Sustainable Urban Deliveries in the Construction Industry

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article presents the first stage of research aimed at building a model for implementation of good practices in the field of construction supplies.

1. The format needs to be further standardized. For example, the first occurrence of a word such as RFID should be spelled out.

2. Experimentation should be further strengthened, not just in the process, especially explain how the process is considered and monitored by stakeholders representing the construction sector.

3. There are some mistakes in English, which need to be checked.

4. Please discuss whether Street View data could be used for this research.

Author Response

DearReviewer,

We are very grateful for the positive reception of our paper. At the same time, thank you for all valuable comments and suggestions. We present them in detail below.

1. The format needs to be further standardized. For example, the first occurrence of a word such as RFID should be spelled out.

This has been corrected. 

2. Experimentation should be further strengthened, not just in the process, especially explain how the process is considered and monitored by stakeholders representing the construction sector.

Comment is not clear. Authors did not conduct experiments. But if the comment concerns monitoring the impact of the decision to implement solutions on the transport system, the following information has been added:

“In order to study the real impact of the decisions to create a permanent unloading area or storage sites on water on the transport system and the level of safety of road users, additional research should be carried out, for example with the traffic detectors. Traffic flows and their fluidity should be analysed ex ante and ex post after permanent unloading area or storage site on water has been arranged. This approach will make possible to unequivocally determine whether a given solution reduces the negative impact of construction supply on the transport system.”

3. There are some mistakes in English, which need to be checked.

The mistakes has been checked and corrected.

4. Please discuss whether Street View data could be used for this research.

Information about possibility of using a Street View data was discuss at conclusions.

“ The organization of permanent unloading areas and storage sites/offices on the water have been identified as organizational solutions allowing to reduce the negative impact of construction supplies on cities that are easy to implement. This is mainly due to the low costs of implementing solutions and the readiness of enterprises to implement them. On the other hand, conditions must be met regarding the terrain, the necessary infrastructure, and a permit should be obtained. Street View data and data about traffic flows in a given area may be helpful in the process of deciding on the location of permanent unloading areas and storage sites/offices on water.”

Reviewer 2 Report

The article does answer the 'research' question: "The purpose of this article is to analyze the construction supplies transport in the city of Szczecin, and to identify good practices in that regard, which are applied elsewhere".

The best practices described are not well structured: what elements are related to the structure of goods flow (e.g., hubs and water), and what elements to planning and control, ICT, and governance?

However, the method used for the research is not very well described (and the validity of the results). Using a MAMCA or multi-criteria analysis to analyze the good practices would have been helpful.

In references, I miss relevant research literature from Ruben Vrijhoef, Mats Janne, and the EU Success project.

Limitations of research and approach should be mentioned; the small number of interviews, management level of interviewees and methodological limitations.

Conclusions are clear (but generic).

 The overall merit is: average.

 

Author Response

DearReviewer,

We are very grateful for the positive reception of our paper. At the same time, thank you for all valuable comments and suggestions. We present them in detail below.

1. The best practices described are not well structured: what elements are related to the structure of goods flow (e.g., hubs and water), and what elements to planning and control, ICT, and governance?

Authors added:

“In order to reduce the negative impacts of construction supplies transportation, steps should be taken toward more sustainable UFT. Such activities include various organisational and telematics solutions. Telematics solutions that affect sustainable urban freight transport connected with construction site supplies may be basically divided into those related to procurement planning (solutions used by construction companies) and those connected directly with transport (used by transport companies and solutions implemented by city authorities).”

“The organisational solutions that contribute to more sustainable transport of construction site supplies include solutions allowing for more rational planning and control of supply processes (Construction Logistics Plan (CLP), night deliveries, delivery consolidations) or related to the structure of goods flow (Construction Consolidation Cen-tres (CCC), establishing permanent unloading areas or alternative storage sites).”

The description of good practices has been supplemented with an expert assessment.

“Non-standardized interviews were conducted with urban freight transport experts from 4 countries (Poland, Netherlands, Norway, Spain). The study involved 9 experts representing such research and development units as: Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Delft University of Technology, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Maritime University of Szczecin. Experts were asked to evaluate selected solutions in terms of the difficulty of their implementation. The evaluation criterion was implementation cost, the need to obtain permits/legal requirements and infrastructure requirements (including transport, technical and IT infrastructure). The assessment is presented in Table 1.

Kind of solutions	Solutions	Implementation cost	Legal requirements	Infrastructure requirements
Telematic measures	ERP	Medium	Low	Medium
	BIM	Medium	Low	Medium
	Alternative drive vehicles	High	Low	High
	Fleet and freight management support systems	Medium	Low	Medium
	Driver assistance systems	Medium	Low	Low
	Automated vehicle access control systems	Medium/High	Medium	Medium
	Automated toll collection	Medium	Medium	Medium
	Mapping and visualising software	Medium	Low	Medium
Organisation measures	CCC	High	Medium	High
	CLP	Low	Low	Low
	Consolidation of deliveries	Low	Low	Low
	Night deliveries	Low	Low	Low
	Permanent unloading area	Low	Low/Medium	Medium
	Alternative storage sites	Low	Medium	High

Table 1. Evaluation of selected solutions. Source: own studies.

Implementation costs for the automated vehicle access control system were set as medium/high. It is related to the entity and place of implementation of the solution. In the case of implementing the solution directly on the construction site, these are high costs in the scale of the companies implementing them. If the solution is implemented by the city, these are medium costs. Legal requirements for the permanent unloading area have been set to low/medium. It depends on where the area is created. In the case of creating such a place directly on the construction site, the legal requirement was set as low, in the case of creating it in the adjacent areas - medium.

Interviews held with representatives of construction companies have shown that, in general, there is little interest in using solutions that contribute to the more sustainable organisation of construction site supply processes. Costs were indicated as the biggest barrier to the implementation of selected solutions. CLP, night deliveries or consolidation of deliveries are the simplest solutions to implement because they only require enterprises to change their approach to planning. Permanent unloading areas or alternative storage sites, however, also require meeting other conditions, related to, among others, infrastructure and the need to obtain permits from authorities. Due to the above, in the further part of the paper, the authors focus on this two solutions.”

2. However, the method used for the research is not very well described (and the validity of the results). Using a MAMCA or multi-criteria analysis to analyze the good practices would have been helpful.

The description of good practices has been supplemented.

Authors added: “The authors of the paper plan to continue the research with the use of Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA) in order to pay special attention to the role of stakeholders representing the construction sector”

3. In references, I miss relevant research literature from Ruben Vrijhoef, Mats Janne, and the EU Success project.

References have been added. 

Vrijhoef R, Koskela L. A critical review of construction as a project-based industry; identifying paths towards a project-independent approach to construction. In Kadi AS, editor, Learning from Experience; new challenges, theories and practices in construction. Espoo, Finland: VTT. 2005. p. 13-24

Janné, M.: Construction logistics solutions in urban areas (Vol. 1806). Linköping University Electronic Press, 2018.

Success project report already was mentioned at references, but authors also added information at the text. 

[31] VPF. Business models for construction logistics optimisation and CCC introduction report 2017. Available online: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e5b0a91534&appId=PPGMS, (accessed on 20.09.2021). 

“This is confirmed by the results of the SUCCESS project [31] as well as the results of CCCs operating in 7 countries.These were located in Great Britain, Germany and Swe-den [21]. Currently, the number of CCCs is growing, and their positive impact on logistics processes implementation is appreciated in most European countries. They help reduce congestion, allow for more flexibility in deliveries, offer a possibility of working on a just-in-time basis [31].

4. Limitations of research and approach should be mentioned; the small number of interviews, management level of interviewees and methodological limitations.

Also, PAPI interviews (Paper-and-Pencil Interviewing) were held with selected respondents among experts from the scientific community (9) and practitioners (5). The number of respondents representing practitioners is small due to the low interest of construction companies in cooperation with the scientific sector. The authors of the paper attempted interviews with more companies but did not get any response. Practitioners who took part in the interviews represented 5 construction companies implementing projects in Szczecin as the main contractor or subcontractor. They were people in management positions. Experts from the scientific community represented the countries where the observation was carried out. They are experts in the fields of UFT, SUFT, construction, and city logistics. Most of the respondents (12) were men aged 30-60. The women (2) represented the 30-50 age range.

5. Conclusions are clear (but generic).

Conclusions was filled.

Reviewer 3 Report

Please find the attached file for the review report.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I think the version does what I want, and the manuscript can be accepted in present form.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We are very grateful for the acceptation of our paper. 

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper title is changed and more focused.  As stated in the abstract (line 18~20), this is the first stage result of building a Petri net  model. This reviewer suggests that the application of this model should be added to show the necessary and effectiveness of the model. Without knowing effectiveness and efficiency of this model, the contribution of this current paper is insignificant.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We are very grateful for the positive reception of our paper. At the same time, thank you for all valuable comments and suggestions. We present them in detail below.

Authors added to abstract:

"As part of the paper, the possibility of using Petri nets in decision-making processes on the implementation of selected organisational solutions contributing to a more sustainable organisation of construction supplies was also examined. The developed decision models were simulated in the HPSim software. Models created by the authors using Petri nets can be an important tool that clearly and transparently shows enterprises their possibilities in the implementation of good practices."    

Also was added at section 4:

“The proposed models allow for taking into account all the elements necessary to make a decision on the implementation of selected good practices. They are a graphical representation of the decision-making process. The enterprises surveyed by the authors showed intuitive decision-making, often dictated only by economic factors, which is a problem and hinders the implementation of good practices. Thus, the creation of instruments to support these processes may contribute to greater openness of construction companies to these solutions, will contribute to the dissemination of knowledge about them, and will allow justifying decisions based on modern knowledge. The proposed models were verified on selected examples of construction sites in Szczecin. Additionally, they were assessed as correct by experts.vThe authors of the paper plan to verify the models in real conditions, but establishing cooperation in this area is a difficult task due to the small interest among enterprises in cooperation. It seems reasonable to propose a set of models to be verified in the next stages of the research.”

Also we want to say that the purpose of the presented models is a graphical representation of the elements affecting the decision to implement selected good practices. Petri nets in this case are a useful tool that can be used by companies in practice. The models were verified on selected examples of construction sites in Szczecin. Additionally, they were assessed as correct by experts. The verification of the models in real conditions will take place together with the verification of the model allowing for the selection of the most sustainable type of construction procurement in the further parts of the conducted research and will be presented in subsequent articles.

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

This reviewer recommends the revised revision for publication in Sustainability.