​The project bases on six subprojects and the digital backbone, running through all subprojects. ​

The project has an overall runtime of 60 months and started on September 15th, 2022.

​The subprojects (SP) are explained in more detail in the following paragraphs:

SP1: Development of an urban hub concept

​Urban logistics needs a fundamental change as cities become denser due to population growth and significant changes in the shopping behaviour (e.g., more e-commerce orders), leading to much higher freight demands. It is predicted that the parcel volume in Switzerland will increase by 75% by 2030 and that LSPs are increasingly buying vans below 3.5 tons to improve their flexibility, leading to an increase of the logistics fleet by 58%. Both facts support the expected further increase of freight traffic on roads in cities. In addition, the space for logistics is already very restricted and there is little chance that more logistics areas in city centres will become available in future. Hence, smart and feasible concepts need to be developed, using existing infrastructure, serving multiple purposes of multiple users in a shared way.
The main goals in subproject 1 are:

• Elaboration of an overview on existing hub concepts
• Identification of the requirements of urban logistics in Zurich
• Estimation of the future freight flows for Zurich
• Development of a model to compute the number of hubs per hub category required and their optimal locations based on the future flows of deliveries to reduce the kilometres driven and to guarantee reliable and fast deliveries for customers
• Defining a common pilot study for the whole project

​Lead: ZHAW-IDP

Involved reserach partners:

• ZHAW-INE
• HES-SO
• ZHAW-InIT

Involved implementation partners:

• Ikea
• H&M
• Zalando
• Planzer
• Cargo Sous Terrain
• City of Zurich (TAZ)
• Canton of Zurich (AfM)

SP2: Design of an urban multihub

The urban multihub (UMH) is the main hub within the city centre. The UMH plays a special role, serving as multiple purpose hub for multiple retailers and LSP, which share the same infrastructure and bundle activities. The aim is to optimise the use of the rare logistics spaces in a city and to merge different activities for the same customers or neighbourhood. Customers can either be e-commerce consumers or stores, offering the products in a brick-and-mortar shop or following an omni-channel approach. The UMH is an automated 2- or multi-step cross-dock and serves as consolidation point for joint delivery, to share activities such as inbound, outbound activities, or warehousing and pick-up and drop-off parcels or goods from consumers. Overall, through the UMH, the burden of logistics within urban areas should be decrease by increasing the logistics efficiency.
The focus of subproject 2 lies on:

• the infrastructural design and the facility requirements of the UMH (design of UMH and necessary warehouse automation),
• the development of a shared ICT infrastructure as a hub management system.

Lead: ZHAW-INE

Involved reserach partners:

• HES-SO

Involved implementation partners:

• Ikea
• H&M
• Zalando
• Planzer
• Swisslog
• Cargo Sous Terrain
• City of Zurich (TAZ)
• Canton of Zurich (AfM)

SP3: White-label logistics

Logistics service providers individually have already largely optimised their distribution system. According to the literature, further efficiency gains through bundling effects of the tour planning for the last mile delivery can be achieved when introducing the concept of "coopetition", i.e., limited collaboration among competitors. For a successful implementation of a white-label approach, the flow of information and their valorisation in digital solutions play a crucial role for this proposal and all subprojects. The ongoing digital transformation will foster this trend and will enable the successful implementation of all the concepts.
For this purpose, the concept of a white-label solution for the City of Zurich is developed, in which logistics activities of competitors are bundled in a collaborative manner. Within subproject 3, white-label solutions are examined from the first consolidation hub within the city, over the urban multihub to the decoupling hub, and, if needed, to the customer. This is made possible through a white-label software that enables collaboration without losing the brand identity towards the customer, a coordination platform (i.e., via auctioning) to allocate deliveries to LSP, as well as a renumeration system among the engaged logistics service providers. A software developed allows to foster data exchange among partners and its documentation.
​
Lead: UniSG

Involved reserach partners:

• ZHAW-INE
• ZHAW-IDP
• ZHAW-InIT
• HES-SO
• University of Klagenfurt

Involved implementation partners:

• Ikea
• H&M
• Planzer
• Cargo Sous Terrain
• City of Zurich (TAZ)

SP4: Decoupling hub customer/supplier

Customer expectations regarding delivery lead times, individually scheduled delivery windows, shipment traceability, and customisation are steadily increasing. Furthermore, to reduce the LSP’s traffic in cities and their costs, a timely decoupling of LSPs and customers is required. This can be achieved, e.g., by providing parcel lockers. They decouple customer/supplier and prevent from failed first delivery attempts, and stolen parcels. Convenient, safe, cheap, and invisible logistics solutions for city residents are important factors determining the acceptance of urban logistics projects.
The following activities will be conducted:

• Analysis of different decoupling options between suppliers and customers
• Analysis of flows of goods and people through Zurich
• Examination of the new role of the customer and its motivation to contribute to the last/first mile process by picking up/deposing parcels at parcel lockers, incl. determining the maximum acceptable walking distance from the customer’s home or office to pick up the parcels
• Determination of optimal parcel locker locations, considering, among others, the customer demands, limited space for lockers, walking distances, and overall costs to run the stations economically beneficial
• Analysis of benefits of stationary or mobile parcel lockers in different situation.

​Lead: ZHAW-IDP

​Involved reserach partners:

• ZHAW-INE
• HES-SO

Involved implementation partners:

• Ikea
• H&M
• Planzer
• Swisslog
• Cargo Sous Terrain
• City of Zurich (TAZ)

SP5: Incentive model

To be able to change the urban logistics toward a sustainable and city friendly one, regulations need to be set. So far, the City of Zurich is not keen to restrict logistics traffic through regulations, especially since not all decisions can be made by the city or the Canton but need to be made at a national level. The City of Zurich is convinced that a sustainable urban logistics can be better achieved if the players are motivated to participate. Subsequently, the goal is to develop a set of incentive possibilities that motivate players to engage in sustainable urban logistics without regulatory force.
The following steps will be conducted:

• Overview of existing regulations in Switzerland and incentives inside and outside Switzerland
• Analysis of the possible effects of these regulations and incentives on urban logistics
• Development of an influence map to get transparency over the direct and indirect positive and negative effects on incentives and regulations
• Transformation into an incentive model and a roadmap that will guide the implementation

​Lead: ZHAW-INE

Involved reserach partners:

• ZHAW-IDP
• HES-SO

Involved implementation partners:

• Ikea
• H&M
• Planzer
• City of Zurich (TAZ)
• Canton of Zurich (AfM)

SP6: Impacts of the urban multihub concpet

​To make sure that the urban hub concept developed and applied in this project has the desired impact in terms of three dimensions of sustainability (environmental, social, and economic), quantitative assessments are conducted. In this, five goals are set:

1. Development of an assessment concept and derivation of different scenarios based on decision possibilities like hub locations and level of coopetition
2. Social sustainability analysis of the scenarios
3. Ecological sustainability analysis of the scenarios through life cycle assessment
4. Economic sustainability analysis of the scenarios through total cost of ownership analysis
5. Derivation of a generalised conceptual model for the urban hub concept

Subproject 6 addresses all dimensions of sustainability of the urban hub concept. It analyses the effects that can be generated through the implementation of the urban hub concept with all its elements on sustainability.

​Lead: ZHAW-INE

Involved reserach partners:

• ZHAW-IDP
• HES-SO

​Involved implementation partners:

• Ikea
• H&M
• Zalando
• Planzer
• Swisslog
• Cargo Sous Terrain
• City of Zurich (TAZ)
• Canton of Zurich (AfM)