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This paper contains an investigation of the COVID-19 impacts on freight flows and the handling of uncertainty in freight forecasting models, based on data from Greece. It collects and analyses, over a 7-year period before and during the pandemic, data for freight transport operations and some related factors in order to macroscopically examine any statistically significant changes in their values over time. This period wasjudged necessary in order to establish the pattern of fluctuations in the relevant data during the non-pandemic years and thus make the visual comparison with the previous period and the years during the pandemic, more clear. First, the paper tests the impact of the pandemic as expressed by the number of daily COVID-19 cases on freight flow variables in order to find the dynamic behavior of these variables and trace their reactions over time. This analysis is made by using the Vector Autoregressive Model (VAR). By implementing VAR modelling, we analyzed the dynamic relationship between freight transport volumes and other factors such as GDP, the industrial production index, exporting transactions and the number of coronavirus cases. The main result of the model analysis and the employment of impulse response functions revealed that the unexpected shock of COVID has a negative reaction to the economy and the freight transport volumes and a rather shortterm limited duration disruption effect on the growth of exports as well as on the industrial production index, of approximately eight months. Secondly, the paper discusses how, unpredicted events like the pandemic, influence the uncertainty inherent in freight transport modelling and formulates a novel freight modelling framework procedure based on scenario building, regular monitoring and data updates on a permanent basis. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Advances in Transportation Studies is the property of Advances in Transportation Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
Freight transportation in urban areas represents an essential activity from the standpoint of economic development;in recent years, the spread of e-commerce (also accelerated by COVID-19) has contributed to increasing the demand for freight distribution over short distances. In most cities, the approaches and measures are often based on new technologies. Nevertheless, today there are contexts wherein delivery operations represent critical tasks to be solved. Furthermore, low accessibility areas, such as small islands, present further problems due to their exclusive dependence on maritime links (and often low-reliability services). This paper tackles this topic, formulating and solving a distribution problem by linking shipping services with last-mile distribution operated by means of an automatic delivery service (parcel lockers). A test application is proposed by considering the small island of Lipari in the archipelago of the Aeolian islands (Sicily, Southern Italy). The results show that such a type of service could reduce the user's waiting time when compared to traditional home deliveries.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: This paper proposes an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) platform to increase the sustainability and resilience of smallholders to face supply chain disruptions in the event of COVID-like crises. The platform facilitates interactions between smallholders and buyers, workers and freight transport companies in agri-food ecosystems. Furthermore, this research work presents the implementation of the freight transport companies' platform module. Design/methodology/approach: The research work begins with a literature review aiming at analyzing current available ICT solutions supporting smallholders and other actors in the agri-food supply chain. This analysis identifies the research gaps which have to be filled by the platform. Then, the authors proceed with the analysis of the operational scenarios of each platform actor by interacting with experts and operators working in the agri-food sector. The results of such analysis resulted in a comprehensive, unambiguous and consistent set of specification being used to define the platform structure and modules architecture. The platform modules have been developed by using the web-application framework Laravel. Findings: Preliminary tests show that the proposed platform is usable and promises to improve the resilience and economic, social and environmental sustainability of agri-food supply chains, with a focus on smallholders. Originality/value: The research work allows players in the agri-food supply chain and in particular small local producers to react and mitigate the impact of COVID-like crises through development of a platform in which smallholders, citizens (buyers and workers) and freight transport companies are simultaneously present. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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Globally, the transportation and logistics sector is facing economic disruptions owing to geopolitical tensions and post-COVID-19 global economic downturns. This disruption places more pressure on transportation companies to review their work methods and processes. Coupling data and model-driven approaches is essential for developing effective and efficient resilience strategies. To address this issue, this study provides an overview of the appearance of simulation in business analytics. However, a thorough review of the literature based on the PRISMA search process allowed us to identify that none of the previous studies could highlight the role or evaluate the hybridization between business analytics and simulation and their joint use in freight transportation. Moreover, this study proposes a collaborative framework based on the intuitionistic fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (IF-AHP) technique to select a business analytics-enabled simulation architecture. This study contributes to the freight transport sector by setting up an updated list of criteria and sub-criteria necessary for business analytics evaluation and enriches the literature by applying the IF-AHP technique to a concrete case of implementing data analytics and simulation. This study also suggests future directions to enrich the academic literature and offers insights to improve the framework for other use cases. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd
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In the contribution, we deal with the development of GDP on the volume of transported goods in the V4 countries with regard to the post-Covid and pre-Covid periods. As part of the research, we examined the development of the period from 2011 to 2020, for which annual data were available. We assume that despite the critical years with regard to COVID-19, except for a minor period of decline or stagnation, the volume of transport itself is relatively stable. As part of the examination of the selected countries, it is significant that some countries from the V4 experienced a sharp increase in transport at the end of the given period, which ultimately had an impact on the GDP of the given country. © 2022 IEEE.
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The impact of Covid-19 on the global economy's functioning and the long-term growth of supply chains was first reported in Türkiye in March 2020. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on the financial and economic structure performance of Turkish sea freight transport sector, as well as how the sector has adapted to the new reality brought on by Covid-19. In this regard, the consolidated financial statements of 997 companies for the year 2020 were studied using ratio analysis, and the results were compared to the financial outputs of the 2008 global financial crisis and the European sovereign dept crisis. As a result of the study, it was determined that the sector's response to crises in different time periods varied. In order to avoid debt default during the pandemic, the capital structure restricted short-term resources while increasing long-term resources. Despite the pandemic conditions, it has been noticed that there are no barriers to accessing money market instruments in the sector, that the working capital structure has been enhanced, and that a balanced financing plan has been established to ensure the continuity of cash flows. This is the first study that analyses the sector as a whole, reveals the financial and economic repercussions of the pandemic on the sector, and compares these effects to those of recent financial crises. In addition, authorities of the maritime transport industry in other countries will find this helpful research for conducting comparative analyses, and the findings can be generalised.
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The active use of freight transport in the process of flow management in terms of adapting the supply of goods during the spread of the pandemic COVID - 19 - in peacetime and the supply of military equipment, humanitarian goods during the war. High adaptability of river freight transport to changes in key security environment conditions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the context of hostilities in Ukraine - reformatting of logistics activities to maintain security and ensure the delivery of goods, as well as changing the role of certain modes of transport in conditions of hostilities. In the context of hostilities, the transport freight system is proposed to be considered as a consolidated flexible logistics system with support nodes in the basic elements of land and water infrastructure, which, given the comparison of potential nodes and multiplier effect has increased resistance to aggression in war. The specifics of river freight transport in the system of the unified logistics system of the country in meeting the needs of civil. © 2022 Kaunas University of Technology. All rights reserved.
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Forwarding companies are an integral part of supply chains and an intermediary between the carrier and the customer. The aim of the article is to provide information on the forwarder's position in the transport market. In connection with the procurement of transport, we focus on comparing transport performance in selected European countries. We take a closer look at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on transport performance in France. The transport of goods is a risk area that has various negative effects on transport companies. In this article, we provide an overview of criminal activity in France, focusing on the specific types of risk involved. As the frequency of each potential risk occurrence is an important factor, it is necessary to make a codification of the overall threats facing the company, their consequences and the likelihood of their occurrence. These risks can be prevented by making the right decisions. For the carrier, the easiest risk prevention is route planning. The effect of choosing a safer transport route on the size of the risk is described in the article. © 2022 Archives of Automotive Engineering.
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While industry tends towards mass personalisation and instant deliveries, the last mile of urban logistics is being challenged to decrease the number of vehicles in circulation and the distances they travel in city centres. The COVID-19 pandemic helped expose the inefficiency of cities in fulfilling citizens' real-time needs. Moreover, the first aim of this paper is to understand the barriers which policymakers face in providing a personalised response to citizens' needs and the second to ascertain how they can proactively serve their communities. In line with these concerns, empirical evidence was collected through a questionnaire to Portuguese policymakers, and the results were discussed in a focus group with experts. The results suggest a lack of tools to enable real-time visualisation and study of scenarios for implementing and organising means of delivery and storage. Moreover, although policymakers feel confident in their capacity to manage the last mile, they would struggle to operate autonomously. Therefore, this paper conceptualises an initial algorithm based on the dynamic collaboration of stakeholders and sharing of resources to guarantee fulfilment of citizens' necessities. Furthermore, future discussions shall emerge about the relationships and technical standards between stakeholders to provide the necessary logistical means for city management and operations.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruptions in the freight transport sector. The number of studies on the impact of COVID-19 on freight transport and possible mitigation strategies are growing. However, a systematic and comprehensive review highlighting the research themes, main findings, research methods, and future research directions of these studies remains scarce. Therefore, this study presents a mixed review comprising scientometric and systematic reviews to cover these research gaps. Results show that 68 studies have been published on this topic since the beginning of 2020 and that they cover three main themes: the impacts of COVID-19 on freight transport, mitigation strategies, and recovery during and after COVID-19. In addition, we describe the research methods, main findings, and possible research directions in each of them. Thus, the findings of our work present both theoretical and practical analyses of COVID-19-related research on freight transport and provide important future research directions in this domain.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Forecasting , Humans , Pandemics/prevention & controlABSTRACT
This book is a systematic collection about COVID-19 and various modes of transport (railways, road, air, waterway, walking and biking, shared mobility, etc.), logistics, and supply chains, economy and daily life, covering different geographical territories and cultures, from both academic and practical perspectives. Impacts of COVID-19 are widely investigated, and policy measures are examined from various angles. Best practices in emergency and immediate measures (especially from a cross-sectoral perspective) against pandemics are included to provide immediate guidelines to policymakers, supported by various case studies. Effective governance is examined in order to put all policymaking innovations into practice. This book consists of six main parts. Part I overviews historical pandemics. Part II investigates the overall impacts of COVID-19. Part III focuses on logistics and supply chains. Part IV examines responses to distancing policies and public transport. Part V explores recovery issues. Part VI looks to the future, followed by a summary of key policy recommendations and future challenges.
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Global supply and transport chains have been heavily affected by governmental measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. To counteract the negative externalities of each measure, the various countries had to levy countermeasures. This chapter uses a literature review to analyze which COVID-19 pandemic containment measures had a negative external effect on the supply and transport chains within the European Union (EU) and which countermeasures were levied to reduce and prevent these effects. The chapter results show that the breakdown of supply and transport chains within the EU during the first wave was due to the closure of factories and the closure of borders within the EU. The countermeasures developed by the European Commission and the member states during the first wave, such as the introduction of the “Green Lanes” transport concept, are able to help relax the situation.
ABSTRACT
The urban freight sector provides an essential service by delivering goods that are required by shops, companies, and households at a specific place and time. However, the growth of e-commerce and the dawn of on-demand logistics (hereinafter ODL) have raised citizens’ expectations of logistics systems, further stressing them and thereby increasing their operational and environmental costs. To the authors’ best knowledge, there are no extensive literature reviews specifically on the topic of ODL and on suggestions for policy prioritisation for tackling its effects. This paper aims at addressing this issue by providing an extensive literature review of ODL and its enablers. This research, after a thorough explanation of the ODL rationale, its trends, and its effects, analyses possible solutions to its inefficiencies, focusing on enablers and barriers. Furthermore, it illustrates and clarifies the role of external factors in influencing ODL. Finally, it proposes a systematic evaluation approach by identifying knowledge gaps and consequently defining the subsequent actions needed, broken down by the individual influencing components, rendering these solutions compatible with the status quo and effective for solving the highlighted issues.
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The growth in e-commerce that our society has faced in recent years is changing the view companies have on last-mile logistics, due to its increasing impact on the whole supply chain. New technologies are raising users’ expectations with the need to develop customized delivery experiences;moreover, increasing pressure on supply chains has also created additional challenges for suppliers. At the same time, this phenomenon generates an increase in the impact on the liveability of our cities, due to traffic congestion, the occupation of public spaces, and the environmental and acoustic pollution linked to urban logistics. In this context, the optimization of last-mile deliveries is an imperative not only for companies with parcels that need to be delivered in the urban areas, but also for public administrations that want to guarantee a good quality of life for citizens. In recent years, many scholars have focused on the study of logistics optimization techniques and, in particular, the last mile. In addition to traditional optimization techniques, linked to the disciplines of operations research, the recent advances in the use of sensors and IoT, and the consequent large amount of data that derives from it, are pushing towards a greater use of big data and analytics techniques—such as machine learning and artificial intelligence—which are also in this sector. Based on this premise, the aim of this work is to provide an overview of the most recent literature advances related to last-mile delivery optimization techniques;this is to be used as a baseline for scholars who intend to explore new approaches and techniques in the study of last-mile logistics optimization. A bibliometric analysis and a critical review were conducted in order to highlight the main studied problems, the algorithms used, and the case studies. The results from the analysis allow the studies to be clustered into traditional optimization models, machine learning approaches, and mixed methods. The main research gaps and limitations of the current literature are assessed in order to identify unaddressed challenges and provide research suggestions for future approaches.
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Purpose: This paper systematically evaluates the existing literature of innovations in freight transport, including all modes, to uncover the key research themes and methodologies employed by researchers to study innovations and their implications in this industry. It analyses the role of transport and the impact of innovations during crises, such as COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the innovations in freight transport unravels the pre-requisites of such endeavours in achieving a resilient and sustainable transport network that effectively and efficiently operates during a crisis. The authors performed keyword co-occurrence network (KCON) analysis and research focus parallelship network (RFPN) analysis using BibExcel and Gephi to determine the major resulting research streams in freight transport. Findings: The RFPN identified five emerging themes: transport operations, technological innovation, transport economics, transport policy and resilience and disaster management. Optimisation and simulation techniques, and more recently, artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) approaches, have been used to model and solve freight transport problems. Automation innovations have also penetrated freight and supply chains. Information and communication technology (ICT)-based innovations have also been found to be effective in building resilient supply chains. Research limitations/implications: Given the growth of e-commerce during COVID-19 and the resulting logistics demand, along with the need for transporting food and medical emergency products, the role of automation, optimisation, monitoring systems and risk management in the transport industry has become more salient. Transport companies need to improve their operational efficiency using innovative technologies and data science for informed decision-making. Originality/value: This paper advises researchers and practitioners involved in freight transport and innovation about main directions and gaps in the field through an integrated approach for evaluating research undertaken in the area. This paper also highlights the role of crisis, e.g. COVID-19, and its impacts on freight transport. Major contributions of this paper are as follows: (1) a qualitative and quantitative, systematic and effective assessment of the literature on freight transport through a network analysis of keywords supplemented by a review of the text of 148 papers;(2) unravelling major research areas;(3) identifying innovations in freight transport and their classification as technological and non-technological and (4) investigating the impact of crises and disruptions in freight transport. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc worldwide, with profound economic, environmental, and social implications. Fears about the economic situation have called attention to freight transportation performance as a derivative economic development demand. It is critical to economic growth, especially in industrialized countries with a strong positive relationship to road transport. The empirical evidence in developing countries, such as Colombia, showed that economic growth has had linked to road freight transport regardless of comparisons with other economic sectors. Thie main objective of the paper is to assess the impact caused by the COVID-19 restrictions on freight transport by road to depict the challenge between freight transport performance and economic growth. The total freight transported in 2020 was predicted based on a time series analysis considering the system's performance. As a result, in 2020, the ton of freight transported became only 40% of the predicted freight in the most critical month. The analysis can help planners implement policies to improve freight transport behavior and react during future economic downturns. Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate that freight transportation must be fast and flexible, is crucial to act in the short term, and consider the long-term recovery. In addition, cooperation among the various economic sectors' stakeholders must be necessary.
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The disruptive innovation of e-commerce on incoming and outgoing flows has led to a marked increase in traffic volumes over the so-called last mile. This increase has inevitably impacted urban infrastructures ill prepared for such higher flows and related negative externalities. Moreover, fierce competition and ever more complex customer demand weigh on firms' logistic chains in the form of increased delivery charges and operational inefficiencies simply to preserve market share. This situation is likely to worsen as e-commerce continues to expand and uncertainty over Covid 19 persists. The last mile is a rapidly changing yet problematic link in the logistic chain since: - customers expect free and fast delivery;- logistic companies need to satisfy increasingly demanding customer delivery needs;- urban roads, already overloaded with flows of people and traditional goods, face significant increases in the size of these flows together with the rapid speed of change;- these complex changes are not a priority on policy makers' agenda. All these changes will transform the concept of the city. The purpose of this paper is to provide an updated overview of the current condition for urban deliveries as well as to analyse challenges and identify opportunities for future improvements. This paper reviews recent developments in e-commerce and the urban freight transport solutions used. Specifically, the work provides a complete overview of the critical factors affecting e-Commerce's last mile (failed deliveries, returns, packaging, role of customer satisfaction). The paper also highlights gaps in current research on the topic (i.e. data collection on load factors, externalities, warehousing space and related impacts) as well as within the political agenda (i.e. regulation for efficiency in delivery, planning of collection points and their accessibility, green urban policies, consumer environmental awareness).
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International trade is an important industry for the national economy of any country. Effective logistics chains are required to implement it. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the unwillingness of countries and international organizations to take coordinated measures to ensure the smooth movement of goods among countries and their efficient distribution. The lack of research on the transport of goods and their distribution, the operation of transport and the state of the supply chain in a pandemic explained by time constraints and insufficient information. The paper studies the trends in the development of international trade and international transport. The foreign experience in organizing freight transportation and their impact on international trade summarized. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the logistics of distribution of goods and measures to improve them assessed. An assessment was made of the efficiency of logistics and factors affecting the development of international trade and freight transport of the EAEU countries, since these countries are an important trade and logistics intermediary in international trade between Europe and Southeast Asia. According to the results of the study, ways to improve the efficiency of logistics proposed. Logistics factors affect economic growth in different ways in each country. Considering the role of transport and logistics and their contribution to the national economy, it is necessary to take into account the mutual influence of modes of transport on the country's economy, especially in the long term. We have identified a causal relationship between modes of transport, transport infrastructure and economic growth according to the Granger test, which allows us to different developed recommendations when developing short- and long-term transport policies. Evaluation of the effectiveness of the development of logistics and trade in the commodity distribution system in the regions of Kazakhstan using the DEA-analysis method made it possible to classify and rank macroregions, and large urban agglomerations depending on the conditions for the development of logistics systems, the state of transport infrastructure and wholesale trade, freight traffic, investments in logistics, geographical location of regions. The development strategy of these objects determined by the prospects for the development and functioning of logistics and their influence on the spatial location and the efficiency of the functioning of existing logistics distribution centers. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.