Design and Evaluation of Routing Artifacts as a Part of the Physical Internet Framework

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel framework for the Physical Internet by developing artifacts that enable real-time data sharing among routing nodes, transporters, and containers to improve freight routing efficiency.

Contribution

It introduces three interconnected artifacts that facilitate real-time data exchange and dynamic routing in the Physical Internet, addressing previous limitations of static routing nodes.

Findings

Enhanced routing decisions with real-time traffic data

Comparison of routing artifacts for efficiency

Implementation of cloud-based negotiation for freight transfer

Abstract

Global freight demand will triple between 2015 and 2050, based on the current demand pathway, as predicted in the Transport Outlook 2019. Hence, a revolutionary change in transport efficiency is urgently needed. One approach to tackle this change is to transfer the successful model of the Digital Internet for data exchange to the physical transport of goods: The so-called Physical Internet (PI, or $\pi$). The potential of the Physical Internet lies in dynamic routing, which increases the utilization of transport modalities, like trucks and vans, and makes transport more efficient. Previous concept transfers have identified and determined the $\pi$-nodes as routing entities. Here, the problem is that the $\pi$-nodes have no information about real-time data on transport vacancies. This leads to a great challenge for the $\pi$-nodes with regard to routing, in particular in determining the next best appropriate node for onward transport of the freight package. This paper evolved the state of research concept as an artifact that considers the $\pi$-nodes as routers in a way that it distributes and replicates real-time data to the $\pi$-nodes in order to enable more effective routing decisions. This real-time data is provided by vehicles, or so-called $\pi$-transporters, on the road. Therefore, a second artifact will be designed in which $\pi$-transporters take over the routing role. In order to be able to take a holistic perspective on the routing topic, the goods that are actually to be moved, the so-called $\pi$-containers, are also designed as routing entities in a third artifact. These three artifacts are then compared and evaluated for the consideration of real-time traffic data. This paper proposes $\pi$-transporters as routing entities whose software representatives negotiate freight handover points in a cloud-based marketplace.