Behavioral Factors in City Logistics from an Operations Research Perspective

(I)n the face of sharp urbanization around the world, metropolitan areas have started different initiatives and projects to make cities more efficient and sustainable. Hereby logistics and transportation activities have a major impact in the development of so called 'Smart Cities'. By addressing complex decision making problems through simulation and optimization, the Operations Research community has contributed to the development of sustainable city logistic systems. While technical and structural problems have been extensively discussed in the literature, many models neglect the importance of behavioral issues arising from risk aversion, stakeholder interaction and human factors that play an important role in the consolidation and optimization of logistical activities. This paper reviews existing work considering behavioral factors from an OR perspective. Simulation and optimization models to major problem settings in City Logistics are discussed and methodologies to conquer real-life urban L&T challenges are presented.