Hoong Chuin Lau, Singapore Management University, presents at the 3rd China International Logistics Development Conference in Suining

1. Third China International Logistics Development Conference
Enabling Win-Win and Sharing in
Urban and Multimodal Logistics:
Research Challenges and Technology
城市物流和多式联运之间的双赢和共享:
研究挑战和技术
LAU Hoong Chuin 刘洪泉教授
Singapore Management University (SMU)
新加坡管理大学

2. • The US$20m Lab (UNiCEN) was established in Oct 2014
• Funded by Fujitsu Ltd and the Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF)
• To build capabilities and smart technology to manage urban problems, while
constrained by existing manpower, space and transportation infrastructures
"Adding Capacity without Building Capacity“
• Research + Real-world Testbedding
Urban Computing & Engineering Corp Lab
http://unicen.smu.edu.sg

3. One Belt, One Road
The “Belt and Road
Initiative” was put forward
by President Xi Jinping in
2013, with the purpose of
rejuvenating the two ancient
trading routes and further
opening markets in a
mutually beneficial manner.
Opportunities for China, for Singapore, for the World

4. Chongqing Connectivity Initiative
• Third Singapore-China government-led project,
after Suzhou Industrial Park and Tianjin Eco-City
• Connectivity drives business
a. Financial connectivity
b. System/data connectivity
c. Goods connectivity
• Focus areas:
1. Financial services
2. ICT
3. Transport and Logistics
4. Aviation

5. Chongqing Connectivity Initiative
• SMU’s collaboration with Chongqing University
and Y3 Technologies
• Establishment of Big Data Logistics Lab at CQU
Common
Objectives

6. Trends in Urban Logistics
6
3. Urban
Consolidation
Centers
1. Sharing Economy,
and Platform
2. AI in
Transportation
& Logistics

7. Urban Logistics Platforms
• Passengers hate waiting for a cab, but consignees
don’t mind some lead time in receiving a package

8. Mobile Crowdsourcing
in Logistics
• Last-mile delivery
– e.g. Amazon Flex, Walmart, DHL
• Inventory Monitoring
– e.g., Gigwalk
Current Practices
Key Research Challenges
• Planning and recommending tasks with
uncertainty in workers’ movement patterns
• Pricing of bundles for workers
• Fairness

9. • Recommend tasks to users that minimizes their
detour from their “expected” future paths
• Create an experimental platform that helps study
behavioral aspects of crowdsourcing
 Task Bundling
 Pricing
 Truthfulness
• Investigate the feasibility of crowdsourcing as an
enabler of SMU’s “smart campus” vision
• Extend to crowdsourcing citizen participation in
municipal services
The Big Ideas
Mobile Crowd-Tasking @ SMU

10. Urban Consolidation Center (UCC)
A facility in which freight
flows from outside the city
are consolidated with the
objective to bundle inner-
city transportation
activities so as to reduce
volume of distribution
activities in the city
1. Consolidation
2. Warehousing
3. Cross docking
4. Last-mile delivery

11. Stakeholders
• aims to
- reduce costs of goods
distribution in urban areas
- increase flexibility, speed and
service level and supporting
adding additional value
creation
- improve city's social &
environ- mental situation
through the use of business &
decision analytics
• addresses city's & industry’s
needs
• leverages city and government
authorities as major supporters
• promotes innovative and best-
practice solutions across
academia and industry
Collaborative Urban Logistics
Collaborative Urban Logistics
…..as enablers
• Implement policies to reduce city
challenges, e.g. pollution, congestion
• Support urban logistics through
regulations or incentives, e.g., city toll,
delivery restrictions, etc.
Authorities
….as customers
• Implement products to reduce cost,
increase flexibility, speed and
service level
• Implement solutions that increase
the value add for the customer
Business
owners
Service
Providers
….as partners
• Implement optimized and
collaborative services
• Design innovative solutions that
further increase productivity
Challenge: Get stakeholders to collaborate, i.e. need
a win-win solution to participate in the UCC
Source: DHL

12. Collaborative Urban Logistics
Research Challenges
• Data collection and analytics on urban freight flows
• Behavioral modeling of shippers, carriers and
receivers
• Design of mechanisms that enable multiple parties to
consolidate loads and coordinate delivery timings to
achieve system efficiency and cost effectiveness
• Design of an e-marketplace platform

13. Platform
Capacity
and Cost
Carriers
C
BA
Shippers
C
B
A
Ports
Demand bid (Consignments,
Locations, Timings, Price)
UCC
Customers:
shopping
malls, homes
Collaborative Urban Logistics Platform

14. Multi-Modal Logistics
• 4 factors driving demand for multi-modal logistics:
a) Cross-border e-Commerce
b) Speed- to-market product delivery
c) Integrated supply chain management
d) Establishment of new routes under OBOR
• EU Framework Programme Projects
– e-Freight: an electronic framework for multimodal transport
of goods among all EU freight transport stakeholders
– iCargo: support new intermodal logistics services:
synchronise vehicle movements and logistics
operations; adapt to changes through an intelligent
cargo concept and develop an open freight
management ecosystem 14

15. Electronic Logistics Marketplace
Cloud computing, IoT, social networking, wireless/mobile technology
Source: Wang et al. 2010

16. Chongqing as Multi-Modal Logistics
Hub
16

17. Multi-Modal Logistics Challenges:
From Fragmentation to Coordination
• Operational Challenges:
– Transportation infrastructure is built by modal agencies that
historically did not interact
– Transportation companies are still structured around modes
– Difficulty to have a single multimodal operator to handle
end-to-end delivery
17
• Research Challenges:
a) Collaboration and Alliance mechanisms among partners
b) Data-driven real-time Decision Support Systems for
managing multimodal transport

18. • Develop sophisticated multi-modal
transportation models through the use of
data analytics and AI planning & scheduling
• Multi-modal logistics challenges:
– Strategic
– Tactical
– Operational
18
SMU-CQU-Y3 Collaboration

19. Conclusion
• Research Challenges and Opportunities
for OBOR
–Congestion
–Collaboration
–Customization

20. Questions/Comments
Enabling Win-Win and Sharing in
Urban and Multimodal Logistics:
Research Challenges and Technology
Hoong Chuin LAU
(hclau@smu.edu.sg)