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Urban Logistics

Urban logistics is one of the central keywords in relation to the movement of goods and describes the transport of goods in urban areas. This refers to all movements within a city district, both in terms of supplying end customers and in terms of supplying retail, industry, or trade. Here, courier, express and parcel services (CEP) are of significance in terms of traffic volume, both in the B2C and B2B sector. Especially in residential areas, the vehicles of the well-known service providers are particularly conspicuous, but also the forwarding traffic in the city centres with larger vehicle categories plays a decisive role in supplying the population as well as in the traffic load of urban areas. 

These challenges call for sustainable and efficient solutions to which PTV contributes. We are researching new concepts for delivery processes in urban areas, the intelligent use of digitization possibilities and considering the use of alternative drives for delivery vehicles. In addition, PTV offers powerful and scalable software solutions for planning, routing and navigation of fleets in urban areas. Research projects are helping to further develop the applications, outline future use cases and design future urban policy developments.

Our fields of action

We develop urban delivery concepts with intelligent use of digitalization possibilities as well as the use of alternative drives for delivery vehicles. We offer powerful and scalable software solutions for planning, routing and navigation of urban fleets.

Our product portfolio supports you on this and many other topics.

  • Best practice examples for urban logistics in European metropolises
  • Integrated platform solutions for inner-city delivery traffic
  • Optimization of delivery traffic through routing and navigation solutions
  • Determination of possible applications of alternative drives and delivery means
  • Concepts for cooperation in urban logistics

Selected projects

efeuCampus

For many years, PTV has been researching various aspects of urban logistics in national and European projects. cooperation approaches in urban logistics, best practice examples of city logistics approaches in European metropolises as well as platform solutions for freight forwarding in urban areas have been developed and tested in specific applications. One example is the project efeuCampus, which shows that freight mobility in urban areas can be emission-free, generationally appropriate and economically sustainable. A delivery system was developed in which the construction and operation of automatic delivery and automatic removal of parcels as well as the disposal of recyclable materials with the help of autonomous robots can be planned. PTV contributed here with route planning and the development of the technical infrastructure.

iHub

As part of the project iHub, platform and software solutions for the practical use of mixed fleets (conventional and electric vehicles) in distribution transport in urban areas were developed and tested. This supported the dispatcher in planning the different vehicles by including a set of data and information from vehicle, order management and battery management.

Further research projects: iZEUS, BESTFACTLaMiLo.