Consolidation centers in city logistics: A cooperative approach based on the location routing problem

Abstract

In the context of city logistics, freight transportation is one of the prominent causes of traffic congestion, high levels of pollution, and safety concerns. To decrease the negative impact of these issues, different methods have been traditionally implemented. On the one hand, the location of urban consolidation Centers (UCCs) near a city can be used to consolidate freight delivery services. Therefore, the number of trucks moving in urban areas can be reduced. On the other hand, Horizontal Cooperation can also help to reduce environmental impact while increasing service level. This paper combines both strategies, that is, we deal with the location of UCCs and, simultaneously, we analyze different scenarios where the players of different supply chain processes exhibit various levels of cooperation.