URBeLOG - URBan Electronic LOGistics
Overview
Background & policy context:
The last-mile delivery, i.e. the last section of the transport chain before handling goods to the final clients, is often a critical issue for freight operators. This is particularly true in urban agglomerations, where this final step is often slowed down by many factors, such as burocracy, lack of coordination between local stakeholders, unclear rules about accessiblity of trucks, traffic congestion, etc. A reduced efficiency of city logistics, higher costs and the emission of additional pollutants are some of the main consequences deriving from this situation.
Objectives:
The URBeLOG project aims to develop and test an innovative open, dynamic and cooperative telematics platform providing services and applications for the last mile logistics in urban areas; it enables to aggregate the stakeholders transport ecosystem and to manage the distribution processes – from production to delivery – in real-time.
Moreover, it aims to achieve a virtuous system of freight transportation to rationalize and make the last mile delivery process cost-effective, efficient and sustainable and to promote the creation of an ecosystem for the development of advanced B2B real-time services to be used by stakeholders of the urban area.
The project includes research, development and testing on an urban scale of a complex distributed platform for the collection, processing and fusion of open data intended to manage real-time dynamic routing of the fleets. To achieve these objectives the project includes a set of technological solutions and belonging to a complex ICT architecture which will enable the delivery of a wide range of integrated services and vertical applications for different users, available in multi-channel mode. Specific focus will be given to the adoption of innovative technology solutions, based on international standards and, therefore, replicable in different geographical areas of the country.
Methodology:
URBeLOG integrates main functions allowing the development of processes, services and applications for City Logistics of the future. Pilot sites are the cities of Milan and Turin, along with a number of different follower sites in Italy (i.e. Bologna, Rome, and Naples, among others). The two pilot cities represent different application and process case studies that will allow significant testing of project results, as well as potential replication to other metropolitan areas.
URBeLOG project integrates different functions to enable an efficient, cost-effective and eco-sustainable last mile logistics process. The system that will be developed will operate in synergy with many of the existent ICT platforms integrating the different solutions. Starting from available systems in use, the project will identify elements necessary to establish a suite of logistic processes that are more efficient, cost-effective and eco-sustainable and to design and test ICT solutions in the field to effectively meet the needs of the local public administration and of industry operators.
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