Underground Freight Transportation for Freight Delivery in Urban Environment
CME Department Seminar
March 11, 2025
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM America/Chicago
Location
ERF Room 1047 and Via Zoom
Address
842 W. Taylor St., Chicago, IL 60607
Calendar
Download iCal FilePresenter: Ann Melissa Campbell, PhD, University of Iowa
Location: ERF Room 1047 and Zoom
Meeting ID: 535 718 1241
Passcode: Lin@842cme
Abstract: The use of underground freight transportation (UFT) is gaining attention because of its ability to quickly move freight to locations in urban areas while reducing road traffic and the need for delivery drivers. Since packages are transported through the tunnels by electric motors, the use of tunnels is also environmentally friendly. We examine the use of tunnels to transport individual orders, motivated by the last mile delivery of goods from e-commerce providers. The use of UFT for last mile delivery requires more complex network planning than for direct lines that have previously been considered for networks connecting large cities. We introduce a new network design problem based on this delivery model and transform the problem into a fixed charge multicommodity flow problem with additional constraints. We show that this problem, the B-UFT, is NP-hard, and provide an exact solution method for solving large-scale instances. Our solution approach exploits the combinatorial sub-structures of the problem in a cutting planes fashion. We provide computational results for real urban environments to build a set of insights into the structure of such networks and evaluate the benefits of such systems. We estimate the costs for implementing UFT systems and break them down into a per package cost. Our estimates indicate at least a 40% cost savings from using a UFT over traditional delivery models. This indicates that UFT systems for last mile delivery are a promising area for future research. We conclude with a discussion of the many future research opportunities.
Speaker Bio: Ann Melissa Campbell is the Clement T. and Sylvia H. Hanson Family Chair in Manufacturing Productivity in the Department of Business Analytics at the Henry B. Tippie College of Business. Her research focuses on freight transportation, especially on problems related to new and emerging business models, as well as the logistics of disaster preparation and relief. She is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and serves as an Area Editor for Transportation Science. As department chair, she led the department’s efforts to win the 2021 INFORMS UPS George D. Smith Prize for excellence in analytics education. Since 2022, she has chaired the annual FutureBAProf workshop focused on educating PhD students and postdocs about academic careers in business schools.
Date posted
Feb 28, 2025
Date updated
Feb 28, 2025