Smart Logistics and Sustainable Transportation: Last-Mile Delivery, Vehicle Routing, and Crowd-Shipping

Dear Colleagues,

The revenue of online sales has significantly increased in recent years, especially due to the curfews imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though the pandemic is over, its impact on online shopping and consumer behaviors can still be observed. Recent surveys show that, in the past few years, people have tended to keep the shopping preferences that they developed during the pandemic. The resulting increase in e-commerce delivery operations encourages logistics companies to implement smart applications. Such advanced techniques may help companies improve both the operational efficiency of their last-mile activities and the service level that they provide to their customers.

In parallel to smart logistics, companies have focused on sustainability issues for some time since governments have set ambitious targets aiming for huge reductions (e.g., 90%) in greenhouse gas emissions within twenty years. To meet such targets, companies have been replacing internal combustion engine vehicles with electric vehicles. Even though electric vehicles are cost-effective in the long run and environmentally friendly, their operational limitations (e.g., limited driving range) increase the complexity of delivery operations.

This Special Issue of Sustainability welcomes high-quality papers that focus on recent developments and advances in the theory and application of solution methods proposed for the problems observed within smart logistics and sustainable transportation. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Vehicle routing problems;
• Electric vehicle routing problems;
• Inventory routing problems;
• Crowd-shipping;
• Effective solution approaches;
• Exact methods.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Tom Van Woensel
Dr. Duygu Taş
Guest Editors

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