Smart Logistics and Sustainable Transportation: Last-Mile Delivery, Vehicle Routing, and Crowd-Shipping
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Transportation".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 April 2024) | Viewed by 1215
Special Issue Editors
Interests: city logistics (last mile, urban, etc.); cargo hitching; multi-modal transportation; operations research methods; integer programming; branch-and-price; metaheuristics; artificial intelligence approaches; machine learning methods; reinforcement learning
Special Issue Information
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
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
- logistics
- optimization
- sustainable transportation
- routing problems
