EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics最新文献

{"title":"Tactical planning of a demand-responsive connector","authors":"Alexander Bosse ,&nbsp;Dirk C. Mattfeld ,&nbsp;Mike Hewitt ,&nbsp;Maximilian Merkert","doi":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100180","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100180","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We consider the tactical planning of a demand-responsive connector system, where passengers are transported by on-demand vehicles within a zone that is connected to a tram line via a scheduled transfer station. The system combines characteristics of fixed-route and demand-responsive transit systems. We propose the concept of service patterns that indicate the number of arriving and departing vehicles at the transfer station per tram arrival and give a hint on how the fleet should be utilized. Based on a network flow formulation on a time-expanded network, we use a two-stage stochastic programming model to determine service patterns. We conduct an extensive computational study to analyze the impact of several design factors on selected performance indicators from both an operator and customer perspective. The results show that service patterns are not only able to adapt to different demand distributions and describe the relations between system parameters in a concise way, but are also able to reduce the time spent on empty runs between 28%–80% compared to benchmark policies that use the same fixed number of vehicles at the transfer station for all tram arrivals. Lastly, we present a post-processing model to assess the quality of the tactical solutions on an operational level. The results indicate that solutions derived from our approximation are of high-quality and may thus help the operator to communicate their service to customers and obtain realistic estimates of the required fleet size.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45871,"journal":{"name":"EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics","volume":"15 ","pages":"Article 100180"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147951105","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"On-demand restaurant meal delivery with synchronized multi-orders","authors":"Florentin D. Hildebrandt","doi":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100175","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100175","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>On-demand restaurant meal delivery platforms, such as DoorDash and Meituan, have recently introduced a multi-order delivery service: Customers may combine delivery requests from different restaurants in a single <em>multi-order</em> with the service promise of a synchronized delivery. However, the platform must not only ensure the synchronization of multi-orders but also improve punctuality and freshness for all customers. This is challenging because, as we show, synchronization, delay, and freshness are conflicting objectives. Uncertainty in the delivery process and unknown future orders further complicate the decision making. This raises several research questions: How does the introduction of a multi-order service affect the overall delivery operations with regard to service quality and operational expenses? How should a multi-order service be strategically rolled out? How can we balance the competing objectives of synchronizing deliveries while minimizing delay and maximizing freshness? To answer the research questions, we propose an effective policy that allows for a careful and controlled balance between the competing objectives and employ it in an extensive computational study. We evaluate the effect of different trade-offs between delay, freshness, and synchronization on delivery operations over varying demand for multi-orders. We observe that enforcing strict synchronization of multi-orders by assigning each multi-order to a single delivery driver is hardly operational feasible. Occasionally using <em>split-deliveries</em> provides the flexibility to better balance all objectives. Our detailed experiments further generate insights on how platforms may roll-out multi-orders as a new service offering without negatively affecting their existing delivery operation while benefiting from reduced operational expenses.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45871,"journal":{"name":"EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics","volume":"15 ","pages":"Article 100175"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146173381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Improving a railway timetable by implementing technologies for increased automation","authors":"Robbert Abbink,&nbsp;Alessio Trivella,&nbsp;Patrick Looij","doi":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100185","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100185","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The capacity of many railway networks in Europe is highly utilized, but planning norms such as headways and buffer times in the timetable are already optimized given the available infrastructure. Thus, planning norms in busy networks can only be further decreased by implementing new technologies for increased automation, including Driver Controlled Operation, European Rail Traffic Management Systems, Automatic Train Operation, and Traffic Management Systems. Implementing all these technologies directly on a national level would be too complex and would require high investments. Furthermore, since the technologies are relatively new, there is the need to assess their implementation on different corridors and rolling stock based on their effect on the timetable, before deploying them nationally. To address this challenge, we propose a novel railway timetable optimization model that extends the periodic event scheduling problem by allowing the implementation of planning norm decreasing technologies under a budget constraint. Specifically, the model can choose what technologies to implement on what corridors and train series such that the optimized timetable benefits the most. Numerical experiments on single-line and regional railway networks in the Netherlands provide insights into the effectiveness of different technologies, the identification of specific corridors and train series for implementation, and reveal that relatively small investments (15%–20% of the total) can lead to 60% of the potential timetable improvements. The proposed model can thus be used as a decision support tool for railway operators and infrastructure managers to prioritize the implementation of technologies and their locations in a railway network.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45871,"journal":{"name":"EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics","volume":"15 ","pages":"Article 100185"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148769996","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Network design, line planning and timetabling in public transport systems with uncertain parameters: A literature review","authors":"Viera Klasovitá,&nbsp;Francesco Corman","doi":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100174","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100174","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding and addressing uncertainty is crucial for effective public transport design. This literature review examines key aspects of modelling and optimisation on network design, line planning and timetabling under uncertain conditions. We restrict the analysis to the case where some parameters in those mathematical problems have an uncertain value, that is, either characterised as a probability distribution, scenarios, or updated over multiple stages. The literature reveals the use of a wide range of concepts and models, the most common ones being robustness, multi-period planning, and stochastic programming. The research varies significantly in the selection of parameters to be unknown and/or uncertain and, in turn, those that are predetermined and deterministic. A critical analysis leads us to the following insights. The value of including uncertainty in the optimisation is often not quantified, and real-life applications that can estimate its benefits are scarce. The analysis reveals variations in terminology across different papers, with multiple overlapping and/or different concepts benefiting from similar mathematical approaches, highlighting the complexities researchers face. Our analysis indicates that only few articles use data to derive realistic or accurate scenarios and distributions to be used in stochastic optimisation approaches. Despite these complexities, ongoing advancements in modelling and optimisation techniques offer a promising path towards more effective and resilient public transport systems. These improvements ultimately enhance service quality and increase passenger satisfaction.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45871,"journal":{"name":"EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics","volume":"15 ","pages":"Article 100174"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146173379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Vehicle routing problem with multiple fleets and carrier limit","authors":"Gauthier Soleilhac ,&nbsp;Fabien Lehuédé ,&nbsp;Juliette Medina ,&nbsp;Olivier Péton","doi":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100177","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100177","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We address the distribution problem of a company that ships goods from a single depot to multiple customers. This distribution is outsourced to several carriers, each with distinct transportation rates and limited, heterogeneous vehicle fleets. Multiple carriers provide Full-Truckload (FTL) transportation via predefined routes operated by diverse vehicle types, with each carrier offering a limited number of trucks. Additionally, the Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) mode can be used to transport goods from origin to destination. We formulate this problem as a variant of the vehicle routing problem with a private fleet and common carriers. To solve it, we propose a matheuristic approach that combines a Large Neighborhood Search (LNS) metaheuristic with a set partitioning component. Our algorithm integrates filtering strategies to efficiently incorporate specific constraints into the LNS operators. We demonstrate that our method is competitive on established problem benchmarks and introduce new instances. Finally, we present a case study from the French retail industry, illustrating how combining FTL and LTL shipping can generate significant cost savings compared to relying solely on FTL or LTL.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45871,"journal":{"name":"EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics","volume":"15 ","pages":"Article 100177"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147600279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Multi-period stochastic network design for combined natural gas and hydrogen distribution","authors":"Umur Hasturk ,&nbsp;Albert H. Schrotenboer ,&nbsp;Kees Jan Roodbergen ,&nbsp;Evrim Ursavas","doi":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100178","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100178","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Hydrogen is produced from water using renewable electricity. Unlike electricity, hydrogen can be stored in large quantities for long periods. This storage ability acts as a <em>green battery</em>, allowing solar and wind energy to be generated and used at different times. As a result, green hydrogen plays a central role in facilitating a climate-neutral economy. However, the logistics for hydrogen are complex. As new pipelines are developed for hydrogen, there is a trend towards repurposing the natural gas network for hydrogen, due to its economic and environmental benefits. Yet, a rapid conversion could disrupt the balance of natural gas supply and demand. Furthermore, technical and economic developments surrounding the transition contribute additional complexity, which introduces uncertainty in future supply and demand levels for both commodities. To address these challenges, we introduce a multi-period stochastic network design problem for the transition of a natural gas pipeline network into a green hydrogen pipeline network. We develop a progressive-hedging-based metaheuristic to solve the problem. Results demonstrate our matheuristic is efficient, both in computation time and in solution quality. We show that factoring in uncertainty avoids premature expansion and ensures the development of an adequate pipeline network meeting long-term needs. In a case study in the Northern Netherlands for <em>Hydrogen Energy Applications in Valley Environments for Northern Netherlands</em> initiative, we focus on two key scenarios: local production and importation, exploring their impacts on performance indicators. Our case insights exemplify the solid foundation for strategic decision-making in energy transitions through our approach.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45871,"journal":{"name":"EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics","volume":"15 ","pages":"Article 100178"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147706352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Using empirical travel time distributions for calibration of a model of pedestrian dynamics","authors":"Tobias Kretz ,&nbsp;Laura Eckes ,&nbsp;Laura Knappik ,&nbsp;Janis Diz ,&nbsp;Dominic Lipp ,&nbsp;Sven Müller","doi":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100179","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100179","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The social force model is widely applied to simulate pedestrian movements in space and time. In this study, we propose an alternative calibration approach for the social force model by using the base acceleration <span><math><mrow><msub><mrow><mi>a</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>0</mn></mrow></msub><mo>=</mo><mfrac><mrow><msub><mrow><mi>v</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>0</mn></mrow></msub></mrow><mrow><mi>τ</mi></mrow></mfrac></mrow></math></span> as the central parameter. Rather than assigning a fixed reaction time <span><math><mi>τ</mi></math></span> to all agents, as is common practice, we assume a constant <span><math><msub><mrow><mi>a</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>0</mn></mrow></msub></math></span> across agent types and compute individual <span><math><mi>τ</mi></math></span> values accordingly. The problem resulting from a fixed <span><math><mi>τ</mi></math></span> is, that when calibrated on macroscopic level, this can lead to microscopically implausible behavior. We therefore calibrate on macroscopic flow rates but evaluate on sub-macroscopic empirical travel-time distributions from a bottleneck experiment to verify whether the constant <span><math><msub><mrow><mi>a</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>0</mn></mrow></msub></math></span> parametrization preserves realistic microscopic behavior. The results indicate that our calibration based on a constant <span><math><msub><mrow><mi>a</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>0</mn></mrow></msub></math></span> improves the agreement between simulated and empirical data, particularly in the variance and distribution of individual travel times under high occupancy. We define a measure for comparing travel time distributions of the experiment to the two simulation approaches. This overlap measure increases from 0.149 to 0.257 using our proposed approach, corresponding to an improvement of 0.108. The variance of rank changes further supports this: the traditional approach exhibits a standard deviation of 5.63 compared to 2.76 in the experiment, while our approach reduces this to 4.05, lying closer to the empirical data. This suggests that calibrating on <span><math><msub><mrow><mi>a</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>0</mn></mrow></msub></math></span> enhances the model’s ability to reproduce realistic microscopic behavior.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45871,"journal":{"name":"EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics","volume":"15 ","pages":"Article 100179"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147797930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"On the value and challenge of remote assistance in on-field operations","authors":"Jonas Stein","doi":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100183","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100183","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The skilled labor shortage is expected to become increasingly critical in the near future. While this issue affects various industries, the repair and maintenance sector is particularly impacted. Companies operating in this industry face significant challenges in hiring sufficient skilled labor to maintain their daily service operations. Throughout the day, technicians spend a significant portion of their working hours traveling to customer sites, which reduces their effective utilization for completing tasks. Initial efforts to address this challenge have emerged in the form of remote assistance solutions. In the context of service operations, junior technicians with less working experience visit customers with service requests on-site, while expert technicians remain at a central hub, providing real-time assistance remotely to their colleagues in the field. Accordingly, a decision-maker needs to determine and synchronize the daily schedules for both on-site and expert technicians to, as assumed in our work, minimize the working time for expert technicians. Although some literature discusses technical implementations, the emerging business concept and its operational planning have received little attention. We introduce and model the problem by providing effective heuristic planning solutions via Hexaly. Given the limited availability of experts, our approach improves the utilization of their working hours. Compared to scenarios without remote assistance, our results indicate that scarce expert resources can be reduced and replaced by additional junior technicians performing on-site visits. The benefits of remote assistance are particularly evident in rural regions, where customer sites are widely spread, and in operations with rather short service times.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45871,"journal":{"name":"EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics","volume":"15 ","pages":"Article 100183"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148305899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A framework to support the design of demand-responsive transport","authors":"Armando Dauer ,&nbsp;Teresa Galvão Dias ,&nbsp;Jorge Pinho de Sousa ,&nbsp;Bruno de Athayde Prata","doi":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100181","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100181","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) systems have emerged as viable alternatives to traditional public transport (PT), especially in low-demand areas where PT has proven to be inefficient. However, the large number of possible configurations, the heterogeneity of service geographical areas, and the lack of expertise of planners makes designing these systems a considerable challenge. This work aims to support the design of DRT systems at a strategic level by proposing a categorization of key DRT design variables along with a methodology to aid decision-makers in selecting the most suitable configurations, considering the purposes, target passengers, service geographical area, and operational hours of the system. For this purpose, a strategic-level decision support framework (APOLO) was developed. This framework was designed based on the analysis of real-world DRT implementations and existing literature, and it is composed of three interconnected modules. MUSE evaluates the suitability of values of the ”operation” variables using a matrix adapted to the user defined system objectives and perceptions of flexibility. ARTEMIS simulates the daily operations of candidate configurations in virtual scenarios; generating a broad set of KPIs across four dimensions: passenger perception, accessibility; operational efficiency; and environmental impact. DELOS applies a cost–benefit analysis to determine the most appropriate service-level design choices. Globally, the APOLO framework provides both a theoretical foundation and a practical tool to guide data-informed, participatory, and context-sensitive DRT design.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45871,"journal":{"name":"EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics","volume":"15 ","pages":"Article 100181"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148167973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sustainable dynamic pricing for rural shared mobility-on-demand systems","authors":"Fabian Anzenhofer ,&nbsp;David Fleckenstein ,&nbsp;Robert Klein ,&nbsp;Claudius Steinhardt","doi":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100182","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ejtl.2026.100182","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Shared mobility-on-demand (SMOD) systems allow customers to request customized rides that the provider bundles through ridepooling. Owing to their flexibility and efficiency in low-demand settings, SMOD systems are expected to become a cornerstone of rural public transport. Operationally, dynamic pricing can influence which rides customers order, thereby enhancing system performance. In the literature on SMOD, dynamic pricing is exclusively applied to maximize profit. However, rural SMOD services that complement or replace existing scheduled services primarily provide basic mobility as a public service. Further, they should contribute to reducing the emissions of passenger transportation. With this work, we present the first multi-objective, sustainable dynamic pricing approach that considers all three dimensions of sustainability, i.e., social, environmental, and economic objectives. The core idea is to set prices that maximize served demand while adhering to a dynamic lower price bound ensuring that the price of each ride at least covers its expected marginal cost. Thereby, our approach carefully balances the partially conflicting sustainability objectives. To accurately approximate expected demand displacement and marginal cost of rides, which is crucial for making dynamic pricing decisions, we propose a post-decision rollout algorithm that anticipates the future evolution of the booking process. We comprehensively evaluate our approach based on a real-world data set of a rural SMOD provider and derive managerial insights regarding the practical impact of sustainable dynamic pricing. Our findings show that sustainable dynamic pricing achieves substantially better performance than static pricing while preventing monopoly markups, which would result from profit-based dynamic pricing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45871,"journal":{"name":"EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics","volume":"15 ","pages":"Article 100182"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147991621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}