Digitalization of Urban Freight for Improving Sustainability and Livability

Dear Colleagues,

The increasing impact of freight transport on people's quality of life has led to a growing need for digitalization of urban freight, in order to minimize negative societal and environmental impacts and ensure sustainable designs. The gig economy, which involves short-term digital contracts for service provision, presents a unique opportunity to optimize underutilized assets and meet triple-bottom-line targets, thereby addressing the challenges associated with growing urban freight demand. Policy makers are increasingly recognizing the importance of sustainable freight mobility in addressing environmental issues, particularly as the on-demand economy transforms freight transport practices. As such, there is a pressing need for knowledge and assessment of the sustainability of emerging trends and technologies in the mobility sector. This knowledge is essential for both public and private decision makers, making it critical to structure and disseminate information on these topics.

This Special Issue will feature papers that explore various aspects of sustainable urban freight transport and liveability solutions in urban areas. Authors are encouraged to examine the environmental impacts of dynamic urban logistics, including topics such as freight planning and modelling in urban areas, the use of electro-mobility in city logistics, Urban Freight Transport Resilience, logistics impact assessment on livability, public–private partnerships for sustainable urban logistics, and safety considerations in urban freight transport, including ITS, advanced human–machine interfaces, and driver behavior. Special attention will be given to platform-based management, physical internet, digital twin for urban freight, and sustainable urban transport policy through digital decision making.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Environmental impacts of dynamic urban logistics;
• Utilization of electro-mobility in city logistics;
• Digital twins in transportation;
• Platform-based management for urban freight distribution;
• Consumer logistics;
• Planning and modeling freight in urban areas;
• Public–private partnerships for sustainable urban logistics;
• Safety aspects in urban freight transport: ITS, advance human–machine interface, driver’s behaviour;
• Logistics impact assessment on livability;
• Sustainable urban transport policy via digital decisions;
• Hyperconnected city logistics;
• Physical internet for urban freight;
• Urban freight transport resilience via digitalization;
• Logistics as a service;
• Decision-making problems in urban freight;
• Last-mile delivery;
• Process management in urban freight.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Russell Thompson
Dr. Andrii Galkin
Dr. Katarzyna Gdowska
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.