GrazLog

Conception of a cooperatively used inner-city hub for parcel deliveries

A parked city center, numerous trucks of various sizes with small delivery volumes - this familiar form of goods delivery in cities causes traffic jams on the roads, considerable pollution and noise, high energy consumption and, last but not least, increased transport costs. Making the well-known last mile of delivery more environmentally friendly and also cheaper is the goal of the GrazLog project funded by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology (bmvit) under the consortium leadership of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology.

The City Hub Logistics Center

A city logistics center, a so-called city hub, will be installed, where the delivery of goods and the collection of returns as well as the manipulation of goods will be handled. The delivery and collection of goods is carried out with optimized route planning, which is carried out jointly for all participating companies, in a respectively agreed time window. For "last mile transport", environmentally friendly vehicles such as cargo bicycles or electric vehicles are used, whereby additional service offers such as parcel boxes are possible. Optimized land use and a neutral operator structure are further advantages of this pilot project, which is unique in Austria.

Methodological approach

In order to enable an optimal installation of a hub, the approach of the project includes a demand analysis, which considers not only the logistics requirements but also the location and accessibility criteria as well as the legal framework. Together with the possible utilization and operator models, these findings are mapped as scenarios and evaluated with mathematical models. These decision bases are used to make preparations for the installation of a hub and to test the cooperatively used hub in a subsequent trial operation.

For this purpose, a neutral cooperation and operator model will be developed to enable supply and logistics companies (CEP service providers) to use the City Hub.