Project description
Improving the sustainability and resilience of logistics networks
Logistics networks play a fundamental role in industrialised economies, particularly with the adoption of just-in-time production and globalised supply chains. COVID-19 as well as natural disasters exposed the vulnerability of such networks at a global, national, and regional scale. The EU-funded SARIL project will broaden the understanding of logistics resilience for multiple threat scenarios. The study of sustainability aspects based on environmental considerations will be an integral part of the project's work. Key performance indicators that gauge the system’s resistance to disruptions and assess the environmental impact of freight transport as well as threat prevention and mitigation measures will be collected based on extensive stakeholder engagement. Furthermore, simulation methodologies will be employed to provide recommendations for resilient logistics.
Objective
Due to globalized supply chains and the prevalence of just-in-time production, all economies of the industrialized world are reliant on the flawless operation of the logistical network. During the Cov19 pandemic it became apparent that this network can be massively shattered and that a better understanding of its robustness, risks and vulnerabilities is of vital importance. Additionally, it is obvious that the accelerating climate change demands a much greener fright transport.
SARIL aims to complement the classic definition of resilience, which focuses on threat prevention, robustness and system recovery, by green aspects. Key performance indicators will be defined which quantify both, the system resistance against disruptions as well as the environmental burden of freight transport. Adopting three different scenarios on different geographical scales (regional, national and international/EU), models will be developed which are able to capture the unperturbed system operation as well as the behavior in case of a disruptions. While the regional (Italy) and national (Spain/Portugal) scenarios focus on natural hazards which become more threatening due to climate change, the international scenario (Northern/Central Europe) considers the disruptions due to pandemics (like Cov19) or wars (like the Russian war against Ukraine). Although the three scenarios will be modelled with varying levels of detail, SARIL aims at a universal understanding of green resilience by using a common framework.
The results for the three scenarios will be used to assess similarities and differences between the three geographical scales. By exploiting the findings, recommendations to improve the classic resilience, like e.g. synchro-modal approaches, will be derived. Additionally, SARIL aims for recommendations to reach . The results will be widely disseminated to the scientific community and relevant stakeholders.
Fields of science
- social sciencessocial geographytransportfreight transport
- natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsdynamical systems
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesphysical geographynatural disasters
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
80686 Munchen
Germany