A Two-Echelon Green Supply Chain for Urban Delivery

Abstract

In recent years the urbanization to affect many countries of the world has made the significant changes to the material flow at all levels of the supply chain. The last mile logistics operating in the urban area has also changed notably. An increase in the volume of material flow within cities has led to a growth in the number of deliveries and the freight turnover, accordingly. The above-stated processes greatly reduce the sustainability of cities, which while keeping the urbanization trend, can lead to the serious negative results of the social and environmental nature not only for the cities, but also for the countries. One way to solve this problem is to create the green supply chains from the multi-echeloning principles. In the paper, the authors have presented a two-echelon green supply chain using the zero transport emissions within the second echelon. A multi-criteria function has been developed to assess the rational location of a transfer point in order to reduce the negative environmental impact from the transportation system. With the PTV Visum software product, a simulation has been conducted to evaluate the alternative scenarios for generating a green supply chain.