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Sustainability
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Sustainable City Logistics and Humanitarian Logistics
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Sustainable City Logistics and Humanitarian Logistics

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2021) | Viewed by 11844

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Eiichi Taniguchi

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Guest Editor
Resilience Research Unit, Kyoto University, Kyoto 615-8520, Japan
Interests: city logistics; urban freight transport; ITS
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Russell Thompson

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Guest Editor
Department of Transport Engineering, Infrastructure Engineering, University of Melbourne, Melbourne 3010, Australia
Interests: physical internet; urban freight; intelligent transport systems; freight modelling; distribution network; city logistics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Many cities around the world try to tackle complicated problems associated with urban freight transport including higher costs, traffic congestion, traffic safety, environment, and energy consumption. The concept of city logistics provides opportunities to solve these issues using innovative technologies of ICT (information and communication technologies), ITS (intelligent transport systems), IoT (Internet of things), big data, AI (artificial intelligence), and robots, as well as public–private partnerships among stakeholders. City logistics aims to improve the sustainability of urban freight transport systems by balancing economic growth and environmental friendliness. In disasters, humanitarian logistics are needed for providing quick and efficient systems for the delivery of water, food, daily commodities, and medical services to people affected by disasters at shelters and their homes. Humanitarian aid delivery is essential for ensuring the safety and health of people in the emergency cases of disasters. 

This Special Issue aims to provide knowledge and experience on the recent advancements of sustainable city logistics and humanitarian logistics. It highlights the modelling, planning, and management of sustainable urban freight transport systems in normal and emergency cases.

We welcome papers on the following topics for this Special Issue:

  • Modelling city logistics using vehicle routing and scheduling, location routing, multi-agent simulation, and network flow models;
  • Planning and management of city logistics schemes, including joint delivery, off-hour delivery, access control, urban consolidation centers, and parcel rockers;
  • Application of innovative technologies including ICT, ITS, IoT, big data, AI, and robots in city logistics;
  • Evaluation of city logistics measures in case studies in terms of costs, environment, safety, and energy consumption;
  • Modelling humanitarian logistics;
  • Reliability and vulnerability analyses of road networks in disasters;
  • Preparedness of planning humanitarian logistics before disasters;
  • Case studies of humanitarian aid delivery in disasters of flooding, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and pandemics of infectious disease.

Prof. Eiichi Taniguchi
Assoc. Prof. Russell G. Thompson
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • city logistics
  • humanitarian logistics
  • sustainable urban freight transport
  • ITS
  • public–private partnerships

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 1835 KiB  
Article
Sustainable Humanitarian Operations: Multi-Method Simulation for Large-Scale Evacuation
by Bertha Maya Sopha, Athaya Islami Triasari and Lynette Cheah
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7488; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137488 - 5 Jul 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2872
Abstract
Integrating sustainability in humanitarian operations has been seen as a promising approach toward effective and long-term solutions. During disaster emergency management, the evacuation determines the risk of loss in a disaster. To better understand the effectiveness of the evacuation plan while considering the [...] Read more.
Integrating sustainability in humanitarian operations has been seen as a promising approach toward effective and long-term solutions. During disaster emergency management, the evacuation determines the risk of loss in a disaster. To better understand the effectiveness of the evacuation plan while considering the sustainability standpoint, this paper develops a multi-method simulation (MMS) approach to evaluate evacuation time, load balance of the shelters, and CO2 emission. The MMS integrating Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) and Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) incorporates evacuation decision-making and evacuation processes. Comparative analysis shows that the MMS outperforms the use of ABM solely. The simulation results indicate over-utilization and imbalanced load among the shelters, implying a need to expand shelters’ capacity and to revisit the evacuation plan concerning the location of the assembly points and the shelters and the resource allocation. Evacuation behavior heading to the nearest assembly point instead of the designated assembly point based on the evacuation plan worsens the imbalanced load among the shelters and results in higher CO2 emissions by 8%. The results demonstrate the necessity to include evacuation decision-making (social dimension) on top of the technical dimension and to adopt sustainable performance indicators in planning the evacuation sustainably. Avenues for future research are also discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable City Logistics and Humanitarian Logistics)
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21 pages, 2123 KiB  
Article
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Urban Freight—Competition for Space in Densely Populated Cities
by Paola Andrea Cruz-Daraviña, Iván Sánchez-Díaz and Juan Pablo Bocarejo Suescún
Sustainability 2021, 13(12), 6611; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126611 - 10 Jun 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4758
Abstract
This paper assesses the effects on urban freight transportation of implementing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems. BRT systems have been widely implemented in Latin American cities in recent decades, with positive results driven by their high capacity and relatively low cost. Implementing BRT [...] Read more.
This paper assesses the effects on urban freight transportation of implementing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems. BRT systems have been widely implemented in Latin American cities in recent decades, with positive results driven by their high capacity and relatively low cost. Implementing BRT strategic corridors has led to changes in land use, and has required some restrictions on other urban traffic, particularly freight. These restrictions have significantly affected the supply of goods to establishments along those corridors, restricting freight operations and urban freight traffic in general. This paper studies the overall effects of BRT system implementation on urban freight using Cali (Colombia) as a representative case study to understand the origin and size of these impacts. Six key criteria were analyzed to assess the impacts of implementing a BRT system: 1. Mobility patterns; 2. environmental impacts; 3. infrastructure; 4. land-use; 5. legislation; and 6. geographic distribution. Observations and semi-structured interviews were used to complement hard data. The results from Cali show that the areas surrounding BRT corridors generate more than 62% of urban freight traffic. This concentration of freight activity has exacerbated the negative effects of restrictions that have accompanied BRT implementation and altered freight mobility and land-use patterns, not only locally but within the city centre, as well as suburban areas. In summary, the results show that post implementation, a significant share of freight-related externalities were amplified and transferred from BRT corridors to other parts of the city and to inter-regional corridors as well. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable City Logistics and Humanitarian Logistics)
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15 pages, 12782 KiB  
Article
Pilot Off-Peak Delivery Program in the Region of Peel
by Kianoush Mousavi, Sabrina Khan, Sabbir Saiyed, Glareh Amirjamshidi and Matthew J. Roorda
Sustainability 2021, 13(1), 246; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010246 - 29 Dec 2020
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3159
Abstract
Off-peak delivery (OPD) is the delivery of goods during the evening and overnight hours. This strategy has the potential to alleviate peak period congestion, improve efficiency of delivery firms, and reduce emissions. This paper investigates benefits and challenges of a pilot OPD program [...] Read more.
Off-peak delivery (OPD) is the delivery of goods during the evening and overnight hours. This strategy has the potential to alleviate peak period congestion, improve efficiency of delivery firms, and reduce emissions. This paper investigates benefits and challenges of a pilot OPD program in the Region of Peel, with the goal of informing potential broader implementations of OPD. In contrast to other previously implemented OPD projects, this OPD pilot focuses on deliveries in suburban areas. Three firms, delivering to 14 pilot retail stores, participated in the OPD pilot in the Region of Peel from March to August 2019. The analysis shows that during the six-month pilot, the average speed of the trips that were made in off-peak hours, from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. the next day, is 18.1% faster than those that happened in day-time hours. Furthermore, the total greenhouse gas emissions/km decreased by 10.6%, and emissions factors for air quality pollutants, including CO, NOx, PM10, and PM2.5 reduced by 10.8% to 15.0% in off-peak hours. Results for service times varied between firms, but on average increased by 15.2%, indicating activities in the off-peak hours at the retail stores that prevented overall improvements in service time compared to day-time deliveries. A post-pilot interview was done with logistics managers of the three firms, which provides rich insights about challenges, successes, and ways that the OPD program could be improved. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable City Logistics and Humanitarian Logistics)
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