Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Transportation & Logistics (TL) systems are the lifeblood of human society and modern economies, while also raising major challenges in terms of pollution, congestion, energy consumption, etc. We propose a comprehensive research program targeting the integrated study of interurban and urban freight transportation system, the logistics networks it enables and the associated methodological issues. Operations Research (OR) provides the scientific framework for the advanced models and methods required by the analysis, evaluation, and optimized planning and management of these systems that, in turn, challenge the discipline and motivate its continuous development. Our long-term objectives are to 1) advance knowledge in OR and TL and disseminate the results; 2) instantiate this knowledge into innovative methods and decision-support software for transfer to actual users; 3) train HQP for both the academic and the industrial/institutional worlds; 4) contribute to meet in the best possible way the challenge of simultaneously achieving the highest level of efficiency, profitability, competitiveness and low environmental footprint for our firms and TL systems, to support the sustainable development of our cities and society. The short-term objectives target gaps in knowledge and core TL planning issues. We aim for significant advances in 1) large-scale Network Design integrating complex constraints, several layers of decisions, and uncertainty; 2) multi-attribute time-dependent Vehicle Routing Problems with several decision layers and synchronization; 3) cooperative Parallel Solution Methods for network and combinatorial optimisation; 4) Service Network Design for the tactical planning of modal/intermodal carriers and logistics networks, accounting for novel operation strategies and uncertainty; and 5) the design and planning of City Logistics systems concerned with new organizational and business models for the management of city freight movements to decrease congestion, emissions and noise levels within a sustainable urban development context. The program is original in the topics addressed and the integration of methodological and applied issues, and relevant in the scientific challenges and the high economic and societal applications it targets. It is innovative in the methods developed. Among the key characteristics underscoring its originality and great potential for innovation and impact are the integration of planning issues previously addressed separately, the definition and study of new organizational and business TL models, and explicitly accounting for uncertainty, energy consumption and environmental impacts to yield more robust, resilient, and sustainable plans and systems. The research program is expected to make significant contributions to scientific knowledge and, through technological transfer, increase the efficiency and productivity of Canadian transportation and logistics systems. Our results will be widely and openly disseminated through presentations, technical reports and papers in refereed journals. We address major OR problems and expect our results not only to modify the state of the art and the way problems are addressed, but also to open new research perspectives in network design, routing, methods for stochastic programs, meta-heuristics, and parallel computation. We study core issues in urban and interurban transportation and logistics. We are setting the standards in planning City Logistic systems and expect to accompany authorities in addressing these challenges for Canadian cities. We expect our results to contribute to enhancing the efficiency of TL systems in economic, service quality, and impact on society terms and, thus contribute to the sustainable development of our cities and country.