Workforce Development Resources

OLS (=ondergronds logistiek systeem) or underground logistics system is an underground freight transport system for use within urban areas. Feasibility studies have been carried out in Leiden, Tilburg, Utrecht and Twente region

The objective of the formulation is to allow to evaluate easily the costs of the urban distribution of goods by means of wheeled vehicles, and to formalize a methodological outline for the mentioned evaluation, which allows its updating and amplification when it was necessary. The sensitivity of the model illustrates the behavior of the social costs in front of variations of the parameters which intervene in the model. The social costs which are analyzed in this article are the costs of the polluting emissions of the commercial vehicles, the costs of the noise emitted by the same ones, the costs which generate these vehicles in congestion and the costs of the accidents associated to their circulation. The costs of polluting emissions are considered with a matrix model based on an updating of the deliverable 22 of the project MEET. The costs of the noise are associated to the cost of using asphalt noise reducer in the streets with a high daily average intensity. The congestion costs are evaluated starting from the losses of time of the drivers of the commercial vehicles in Barcelona. The costs of accidents are quantified starting from the accident rate studies and mobility in the city of Barcelona.

A system for modelling commercial movements has been developed for Calgary in Canada. The result is a representation that is novel in this context, including a tour-based microsimulation of individual vehicle movements that provides a wide-ranging and detailed representation and yet avoids explicit consideration of shipments and the related complexities regarding the conversion of commodity flows to shipments, the allocation of shipments to vehicles or routings and the treatment of less-than-load movements and empty vehicles. This development effort drew on the data obtained in a set of surveys collecting information on the roughly 37 000 tours and 185 000 trips (within these tours) made in the Calgary Region by commercial vehicles on a typical weekday in 2001. The resulting system of models includes an agent-based microsimulation framework, using a tour-based approach, based on what has been learned from the data. It accounts for truck routes, responds to related policy and provides insight into aspects of commercial vehicle movements. All types of commercial vehicles are represented, including light vehicles, heavier single unit and multi-unit configurations. All sectors of the economy are incorporated, including retail, industrial, service and wholesaling. This modelling system is integrated with an aggregate equilibrium model of household-related travel, with the microsimulation processes done in external Java applications.

In the freight logistics business, supply chains are under strong pressure to provide customized goods and services. Individualized product deliveries, modifications in product specification, late orders and volume changes need to be accommodated within strict delivery time frames. This uncertainty in demand can only be accommodated by allowing for slack capacity and time in trip planning. As this overbooking creates substantial costs, however, firms will attempt to minimize these costs by further optimizing and re-organizing their distribution channels. In this paper we look at the feasibility of one such solution, a hybrid system of contracting freight carrying services. Here, part of the services are provided by various carriers using contracts for a fixed base volume of freight, which results in planned delivery tours. Additional to these volumes, peaks resulting from additional shipments are accommodated by one or more of these carriers within an auction setting based on price and quality of service. The additional freight is won by the carrier that has the most flexible trip planning in terms of capacity, service quality and costs. We test the effectiveness and efficiency of this contracting system by means of a simultaneous, real time simulation of the execution of planned tours, the auctioning process and the rescheduling of tours. The model provides us with new insights on the dynamics of bidding behavior on the side of carriers and shippers.

Although the interest in urban freight transport is growing, it is commonly seen as an area where there is, for several reasons, a lack of research, especially if it is compared with the amount of research that deals with passenger transport. The attention of governments especially for urban goods movement has increased over recent years and with that the number of studies in the urban goods movement field. However, the practice of city logistics policies is not very often the result of detailed analyses and evaluations. This is reflected in similar types of regulations repeated through the different cities regardless of their characteristics, the same schedules for time windows and load zones, and the failure to recognize different types of urban distribution which require different types of regulations. Apart from copying regulation frameworks, however, cities hardly share information, knowledge or cooperation. The lack of national or regional bodies dealing with city logistics, as there exist for urban passenger traffic, is significant. In this paper the authors address the main research contributions in city logistics and try to illustrate how the research contributions are (not) related to the daily practice of policymaking and town planning. Finally the paper ends with the conclusion that a real gap exists between research and practice and the paper provides some explanations, conditions and directions for setting up new research projects.

The Barge Terminal Tilburg (BTT) is located in the city of Tilburg. Currently, this container terminal is operating near full capacity. Since terminal expansion is not possible, an option for the construction of a new terminal is being prepared. The problem is defined as follows: to determine the best design of the new barge terminal that offers high operational performance without exceeding the environmental standards of urban scenery. The research strives to find a balance between the operational issues and the environmental effects of the designs of the new terminal and to evaluate them on performances and noise emission.

The objective of this research is to advice the Municipality of The Hague whether, if and under which conditions, the implementation of an Urban Consolidation Centre (UCC) is possible and desirable. To determine factors that caused the success or failure of UCCs in practice, a survey of 6 cases in Europe is conducted. The cases were selected because of the similarity of the service area of the UCC and the city centre of The Hague or because of the uniqueness of the UCC. To determine the possible success for a UCC in The Hague four scenarios are evaluated. Two major difficulties with implementing the UCC are the allocation of the costs and benefits and the willingness to cooperate of the transportation companies. Both consignees and transportation companies can benefit financially from using the UCC. The UCC operator, however, incurs the costs. The municipality should play a role in bringing the costs and benefits together.

Looks into ways of how to build an unmet workforce

This paper presents a land use and tour-based model for urban goods movement simulation. Three modules interact each other: a "delivery-pick-up model" including transport of goods between all the economic activities in the city; a "town management module", (transport of goods and raw material for public and building works, urban networks maintenance and removals); and a "purchasing trips model", which concerns trips of consumers during their purchasing activities. This paper will focus on the delivery-pick-ups model. Thanks to the results of thorough establishment surveys coupled with driver surveys, this model estimates, on a town zoning, the goods movements (road occupancy, just as by vehicle flows as by on-road parking vehicles) according to the logistic strategy of the shippers and of the haulers, the environment and the characteristics of the establishments and the urban land use. It is divided into four parts: methodology, description of the different components of the model, description of the functionality of the software and discussion of some results.