Sustainability has become a core issue of organizations. In the
logistics domain, the vision of the Physical Internet aims to create
sustainable logistics networks. Sustainable transport in such networks
will still be a core contributor for achieving sustainable operations.
This paper investigates contributions of truck platooning, a means for
safe and efficient freight transport, to physical internet systems vice
versa. The results reveal relationships especially in the PI areas (i)
connectivity, (ii) collaboration and coordination as well as (iii)
sustainable, safe and secure supply chains.
The intention of this paper is to explain our research into the intelligent management of key network road space for road freight vehicles in Kent, to examine with foresight as technology moves toward semi-autonomy and full autonomy of Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGV’s)
Road transport, and in particular road freight transport, is vital in Kent, 80 per cent of powered goods vehicles travelling from Great Britain to mainland Europe use the Dover Strait Port Groupi and the sector is a significant employer. Semi and autonomous technology is the future, there is a need for reliable journey times right, so we have an opportunity for innovation.
Currently, severe disruption at either Dover Docks or Eurotunnel or in France, all have the potential to quickly reduce capacity through across the Channel. Under these circumstance HGV’s are held at a number of locations in Kent on public (this was referred to as Operation Stack in 2015, and currently both is Operations TAP and BROCK). French terminals have up to four times the parking capacity and a larger number of routes to the Port and Tunnel, the impact of disruption is less.
Fully automated delivery of goods in urban areas with small hybrid or electric vehicles can reduce CO2 emissions in cities. We contribute to the “last mile and city logistics” topic by proposing a case study for an autonomous logistics system for delivering packages and mail. For this purpose, electric vehicles and standardized autonomous transport boxes are used. The operator at the distribution center (DC) keeps track of vehicles and transport boxes based on Global Positioning Systems (GPS) information. The boxes are equipped with Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags that contain a microchip to store and retrieve the information from the inventory database records in the central operating platform. Through RFID the recipient is informed about the delivery and then authorized to open the transport box with a Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled smartphone which sends a text message to the operator.