Urban logistics is one of the key elements of urban mobility planning. The use of real-time information systems in logistics operations generates an enormous amount of data, nowadays used mainly for the purpose of monitoring and control of large flows of goods. At the same time, urban planners, business stakeholders, and city administrators are in need of adaptive, data-driven decision support solutions to address today's urban logistics problems. Recently, digital twins have received a lot of attention to support advanced experimentation, simulation and decision-making for on-demand logistics operations. Questions still remain on how to realize these for urban logistics management in a mixed public-private stakeholder context. We argue that this lack of a specific framework for city logistics with a model library for data mergers, linking physical and virtual data exchange, can compromise the timely adoption of digital twin technology. We contribute to filling this gap by presenting a systematic review of the literature, proposing a conceptual framework for digital twin applications in urban logistics, and providing use case scenarios for their demonstration. Together, these should advance the technical implementation of digital twins in a sustainable city logistics context. ... Read more

The use of real-time data in logistics is an important topic. Every day, logistics produces a large quantity of data, which is mainly produced by monitoring and controlling the enormous flow of goods. The last-mile delivery market is expanding at a rapid pace through large- and small-scale consumer platforms, but the economic drivers to create more sustainable systems are weak. Therefore, cities are facing the potential downside of this “Uberisation” of logistics. Urban and city planners, city administrators, and business stakeholders need a new adaptive approach such as the usage of digital twinning solutions of urban logistics. This to help in the interpretation of the dynamics of logistics networks in the city and the consequences of the introduction of particular innovations. The challenge is to predict the most likely developments for the coming years and propose feasible policies on that basis. This research work aims to advance research in the field of digital twins applied to city logistics, by proposing a framework enabling new applications for designing and assessing targeted urban logistics policies and to develop a range of logistics solutions for shared, connected, and low-emission logistics operations, empowered by an adaptive modeling approach. ... Read more