Operations Research for Transportation and Logistics

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Transportation & Logistics (TL) systems support our society while raising major challenges in terms of pollution, congestion and energy consumption. We propose a comprehensive research program targeting the integrated study of interurban and urban TL systems 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 broadly; 2) Transform results into innovative methods and decision-support tools for transfer to users; 3) train HQP; 4) Contribute to meet the TL challenge to simultaneously achieve the highest levels of efficiency, profitability, competitiveness, & low environmental footprint. The short-term objectives target gaps in knowledge and core TL design and planning issues: 1) Scheduled Service Network Design with resource management for planning consolidation-based TL multi/intermodal networks, accounting for interrelated decision layers, congestion, emissions, revenue management, and uncertainty; 2) City Logistics proposing new organizational and business models for the management of urban TL to decrease congestion, emissions and fossil fuel consumption within a sustainable urban development context; 3) New collaborative interurban TL mechanisms to fully use available capacity, add value to stakeholders, & decrease the negative impacts of TL; 4) Autonomous-vehicle fleet operations in urban (flexible transit and City Logistics) and interurban (truck platooning) environments; 5) Large-scale multi-layer multi-period Network Design with structural constraints and uncertainty; 6) Multi-attribute time-dependent Vehicle Routing and Location-Routing problems with several decision layers and synchronization. The research program aims for significant contributions to scientific knowledge and, through technological transfer, increase the efficiency and productivity of Canadian TL systems. 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 TL and are setting standards in planning City Logistic systems. We expect to accompany authorities in addressing these challenges for Canadian cities, and our results to contribute to enhance the efficiency of TL systems in economic, service quality, impact on society and new technology terms and, thus contribute to the harmonious and sustainable development of our cities and country.