The Technological Institute of Aragon ITAINNOVA is participating in the European project DECARBOMILE, which aims to drive an unprecedented improvement in green last mile logistics.
The program consists of developing improved delivery methods, tools and methodologies and applying them throughout Europe. The solutions developed in DECARBOMILE will demonstrate the full potential of decarbonized last mile logistics in four laboratories (in Logroño – Spain, Nantes – France, Hamburg – Germany and Istanbul – Turkey) and four satellites (Tallinn – Estonia, Getafe – Spain, Ghent – Belgium and Sarajevo – Bosnia and Herzegovina) will participate on a smaller scale to test and study the solution in their own local contexts.
To be successful in its implementation, DECARBOMILE will rely on developing methodologies to implement the new solutions and delivery methods in collaboration with all relevant local stakeholders, based on their needs and behaviors.
The objective is to use and improve existing solutions and enable their interoperability and modularity to improve their efficiency and use their complementarity.
ITAINNOVA is collaborating with the development of digital technologies to improve the flow of information through collaborative data spaces, the development of planning algorithms for the coordination of last mile deliveries, and the development of digital twins to assess the impact of all project innovations in different types of future scenarios.
The project consists of 28 partners from the following countries: Germany, Spain, France, Turkey, Estonia, Belgium and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The project results are grouped into 7 categories:
- Methodologies for multi-sector collaboration in last mile logistics.
- Digital platform for collaborative and sustainable last mile logistics.
- ICT and IoT tools that support an efficient logistics operation.
- Zero-emission vehicles equipped for last mile intermodal delivery.
- Recommendations on last mile logistics implementation and improvements.
- Innovative governance and business models for logistics hub consolidation and new delivery methods.
- 4 full potential living labs with urban consolidation centers in the following cities: Hamburg (Germany), Nantes (France), Istanbul (Turkey) and Logroño (Spain).
To achieve the results identified by the project partners, DECARBOMILE will focus on the following 5 pillars:
Collaboration:
Design of a collaboration methodology adapted to the field of last mile logistics and stakeholder identification and contracting. It will start from an urban logistics governance model where it is co-designed thanks to the workshops and other tools included in the methodology. This framework covers the entire living lasb demonstration and its social and environmental benefits will be evaluated at the end of the project.
Business models and value-added services:
The methodologies defined in the early phases will include the business and value-added services development canvas. They will be employed as the co-creation of governance models and needs analysis with local stakeholders takes place. Innovative use cases and value-added services will be tested during the demonstration and their economic impact will be validated, opening the door to new businesses based on them.
Urban integration and space management optimization:
Based on the analysis of the Living Labs participants and further defined in the project, the partners will prepare the integration of urban and micro-consolidation centers (UDCs) into the urban fabrics of cities, in particular thanks to the adapted decision support system. Innovative equipment (barge, micro-containers, smart lockers) will be upgraded and made compatible with the ICT environment, before implementing the UCDs. This demonstration will pave the way for scaling up towards TRL9.
Regulation:
DECARBOMILE activities will be carried out in accordance with Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) and local regulations. Partners will highlight the contribution and compliance of the project features with these policy plans to support the urban integration of UDCs. The demonstration will allow entering into a peer-to-peer learning process among the cities involved, paving the way for replication in satellite cities and suggesting evolving policy evolutions to foster the development of a collaborative and sustainable urban logistics consolidation framework.
Digital infrastructure for operational collaboration:
DECARBOMILE’s ICT expert partners will ensure (data) communication between their technologies and develop their optimization algorithms and digital twins according to the cities’ needs, prioritizing their future integration into the Living Labs. The digital platform will be developed iteratively up to the demonstration phase, will integrate the optimization algorithms and will be refined during the demonstration phase. The final steps until commercialization will be determined, and the digital environment will continue to integrate new or existing features, dedicated to the local environment in which they are developed.
