Optimization of the FURBOT Urban Freight Transport Scheme

The paper refers to an innovative urban freight distribution scheme, aimed at reducing the externalities connected with the freight delivery process. Both packages destined to commercial activities and to end consumers (e-commerce) are taken into account. Each package is characterized by an address and dimensions. In the proposed transport system, freight is firstly delivered to the urban distribution centre on the border of urban areas through trucks or trains which perform the long distance transport. After, freight is reorganized and consolidated into special load units (FURBOT boxes), according to packages dimensions and to the addresses of receivers. Each box is addressed to a temporary unloading bay and it is delivered there by a smalllelectrically powered vehicle (FURBOT vehicle).The paper concerns a methodology for optimizing this freight transport system's performances. The input data are the actual freight demand, the road network and the public policies. The methodology determines the best number of FURBOT boxes which minimizes the system cost. The overall cost is a sum of the users cost, which depends on the distance they have to walk for collecting their packages in the FURBOT box, and of the operator cost, which depends on the number of boxes, and the total distance travelled by the FURBOT vehicles. The minimization problem has been approached by a Simulated Annealing procedure. The methodology recalls two sub-problems: a first sub-problem to determine the optimum clustering of packages in the FURBOT boxes, and a second sub problem to determine the best routing of FURBOT vehicles. The methodology has been applied to the case study of Genoa city centre, Italy.