Last-Mile Logistics Innovations: Parking Guidance Systems and Sidewalk Delivery Robots

The Urban Freight Lab is hosting Prof. Michele Simioni (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden) for a seminar on “Last-Mile Logistics Innovations: Parking Guidance Systems and Sidewalk Delivery Robots.”

Abstract: The talk will delve into the topics of curbside management, simulation, and optimization. The first and main part will discuss alternative traffic management strategies for last-mile delivery operations. Various parking guidance approaches involving allocating commercial vehicles to dedicated loading/unloading bays are investigated alongside a vehicle-specific geofence strategy. Methodologically, an agent-based model framework is used to reproduce the interactions between (parking and cruising) carriers, surrounding traffic, and a traffic controller and integrated with simulation to perform the corresponding optimization. The latter part of the presentation will describe preliminary findings from the ISMIR project, which investigates the interplay between sidewalk delivery robots and pedestrian infrastructure.

Bio: Michele Simoni is an Assistant Professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. Before relocating to Stockholm, he served as a Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics and completed his PhD at UT Austin. Michele’s research focuses on modeling and optimizing emerging transportation solutions and services, with applications in last-mile freight transportation, transportation policy, and traffic engineering.