Blog – Green-Log

Shaping the Future of City Logistics with New Collaborative Business Models

As the quest for sustainable solutions in city logistics gains momentum, innovative collaborative business models are emerging as key contributors towards this transformation. These emerging business models strive to revolutionise last-mile delivery services, focusing on resilient and eco-friendly solutions that can benefit the urban environment, while optimising the operations of the service providers. New interventions are sprawling across various areas, from the usage of autonomous vehicles and droids/bots to the establishment of micro-consolidation centers in public spaces and the implementation of cargo-hitching initiatives.

Driving Green Logistic with the Help of Synthetic Data

In our ever-evolving world, the buzzword “Sustainability” resonates in our ears across all sectors. Among varied facets of sustainability, “Sustainable Logistics” or “Green Logistics”, has become one of the most heard ones since our thoughts gravitate toward carbon emissions from vehicles by having transportation a cornerstone of our lives.

Artificial Intelligence, an opportunity for more sustainable logistics

The urban distribution of goods encompasses the entire flow of merchandise that occurs within a city. This includes not only the final step of the supply-chain (i.e., its last mile) but all the operations associated with delivery, collection, transfer, loading and unloading, placement at points of sale, and return of reverse logistics.

Collaboration for optimised last-mile delivery

Several industry-led initiatives had shown that pooling resources may help ameliorate the last-mile logistics and the related operations, while at the same time satisfying customers’ expectations for fast, error-free and on-time delivery.

Living Labs for city logistics: The evolutionary journey from birth to maturity

Living Labs (LLs) provide collaborative environments where stakeholders can experiment and test innovative solutions in real-world settings. In the realm of city logistics, LLs offer a platform for stakeholders to co-create and co-design interventions that enhance the efficiency, sustainability, and resilience of urban logistics systems.

LaaS: How GREEN-LOG Marketplace solution will contribute to a more sustainable last-mile delivery

The GREEN-LOG project aims to accelerate the shift to sustainable and smart mobility in last mile delivery by introducing a Marketplace as a solution, which targets the link from the suppliers to the consumers in a more sustainable and eco-friendly way.

GREEN-LOG – the adventure towards an era of optimised zero emission last-mile logistics

The world is experiencing an unparalleled growth in last-mile transport following the unprecedented growth of e-commerce. The steep curve is expected to continue in the years to come, fueled by a multitude of factors related to societal changes and technological advancements. This new e-commerce reality brings a number of challenges to urban and peri-urban ecosystems and puts immense pressure on courier companies for seamless servicing of higher volume home deliveries.

Against this backdrop, the Horizon Europe-funded GREEN-LOG project aims to accelerate systemic changes and create last-mile delivery ecosystems that are economically, ecologically, and socially sustainable.

GREEN-LOG will offer Logistics-as-a-Service platforms for interconnected city logistics, automated delivery concepts using autonomous vehicles and delivery droids, cargo-bike-based innovations for sustainable micro-consolidation, and multimodal parcel deliveries integrating public transportation. The solutions will be supported by networked city logistics dataspaces that supply dynamic services for proactive ecosystem optimisation while respecting the interests of stakeholders including consumers, businesses, and the city.

The GREEN-LOG approach provides a cutting-edge simulation environment for scenario building combining different solutions to enable the integration of last-mile delivery interventions with the highest possible impact on environmental sustainability and traffic reduction, also considering their financial viability.

The approach will be deployed and validated in five Urban Living Labs (LLs) covering EU regions with different Urban Logistics characteristics, and varying challenges:

LL#1 Athens (Greece) | Multi-stakeholder collaborations for shared MCCs and optimized cargo-bike use
LL#2 Barcelona (Spain) | Multimodal last-mile deliveries
LL#3 Flanders (Gent, Leuven and Mechelen) | Last mile Urban Logistics as a Service
LL#4 Oxfordshire (the UK) | Next generation last mile delivery integrating cargo-bikes and AVs
LL#5 Ispra (Italy) | Next generation last mile delivery integrating delivery robots

These inclusive stakeholder Urban LLs will act as city platforms for nurturing social innovation, understanding of user needs, habits and preferences, co-designing, and deploying of last-mile delivery solutions while allowing the most effective exchange of ideas.

Three follower cities (Arad – Romania, Helsingborg – Sweden, Valga – Estonia) that experience rapid economic and social change and are highly interested in tailoring and replicating GREEN-LOG solutions will benefit from intensive transferability acceleration actions.

GREEN-LOG is co-funded by the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), a funding body which was launched in 2021 to advance the European Green Deal through high-quality programme management.

Stay tuned for more developments towards an era of optimized zero emission last-mile logistics.