Design and Evaluation of Routing Artifacts as a Part of the Physical Internet Framework

Abstract

Global freight demand will triple between 2015 and 2050, based on the current demand pathway, as predicted in the Transport Outlook 2019. Hence, a revolutionary change in transport efficiency is urgently needed. One approach to tackle this change is to transfer the successful model of the Digital Internet for data exchange to the physical transport of goods: The so-called Physical Internet (PI, or $π$). The potential of the Physical Internet lies in dynamic routing, which increases the utilization of transport modalities, like trucks and vans, and makes transport more efficient. Previous concept transfers have identified and determined the $π$-nodes as routing entities. Here, the problem is that the $π$-nodes have no information about real-time data on transport vacancies. This leads to a great challenge for the $π$-nodes with regard to routing, in particular in determining the next best appropriate node for onward transport of the freight package. This paper evolved the state of research concept as an artifact that considers the