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21st Century Operations Using 21st Century Technologies
Table of Contents

United States - European Commission Urban Freight Twinning Initiative: Compendium of Project Summaries, Volume II
Overview of 2018-2019 International Urban Freight Roundtables

U-TURN

The U-TURN project aims to address freight urban distribution, focusing on food logistics. The project will contribute to our understanding of freight distribution in urban areas, especially addressing the special requirements and needs of food transportation, and will suggest innovative collaboration practices and tools towards achieving more efficient operations from both an environmental and cost perspective. The project aims to exploit the opportunities that currently exist for consolidation of three different food transportation flows in urban areas: a) from food manufacturers/suppliers to the various point-of-sales located in urban areas, given the increasing consumer trend for more frequent shopping in convenient retail stores, b) from local food producers directly to consumers, which is an emerging new trend in big cities, and c) from online food retailers directly to consumers, either through a dedicated depot or from existing stores.

graphic showing U-TURN project pilots and partners
U-TURN project pilots and partners.
Source: Intrasoft International.

Project Type

Research.

Period of Performance

June 2015 - May 2018.

Project Sites

London, United Kingdom; Milan, Italy; and Athens, Greece.

Contact

Eleni Zampou
Research and Innovation Manager
Intrasoft International. S.A.
Brussels, Belgium
Eleni.Zampou@intrasoft-intl.com
306942200332

Topics Addressed

  • Last mile delivery.
  • Logistics/distribution.

Expected Outcomes

  • Pilot implementation of shared logistics practices in fast-moving customer goods (FMCG) settings.
  • Pilot implementation of shared logistics practices via the U-TURN platform.
  • The implementation of scenarios is tested via simulation for two cases, the retailers, and the third party logistics (3PL) case.
  • Addressing culture and immaturity market challenges in the context of agriculture industry and revealing collaboration opportunities.
  • Collaboration opportunities in e-commerce sector are explored via generating secondary data and organizing an event with e-commerce industry representatives for collecting insights.

Stakeholder Involvement

Suppliers and retailers in the fast-moving consumer goods sector, 3PL companies, farmers, online grocery retailers.

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