Open Access
Exploring crowdshippers' behavior and preferences: intertwining urban distribution and people mobility
(Elsevier, 2025-05-14) García Herrera, Alisson Maurinne; Serrano Hernández, Adrián; Faulín Fajardo, Javier; Estadística, Informática y Matemáticas; Estatistika, Informatika eta Matematika; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Gobierno de Navarra / Nafarroako Gobernua
Collaborative economy companies in the transport field have been a disruptive force in the urban mobility landscape around the world during the last decade 2010-2020. Crowdshipping has emerged as a collaborative economy option promoting improved utilization of currently underutilized transportation capacity, thereby reducing transportation costs and emissions. This article aims to analyze and synthesize existing research on the impact of the crowdshipper (individuals responsible for collecting and delivering the product) behavior on the system and the factors that drive his or her willingness to participate, to identify best practices and opportunities to enhance business analytics, decision-making, and model efficiency in this emerging area.
Open Access
Topology effects in drone parcel delivery
(Cal-Tek srl, 2024) Izco Berastegui, Irene; Serrano Hernández, Adrián; Faulín Fajardo, Javier; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa, PJUPNA26-2022
Despite the positive sustainability prospects of drones, their flight range is compromised due to their limited battery capacity and the payload of delivered parcels. An alternative to address this challenge is the placement of charging stations where drone batteries are recharged to expand their flying range. The aim of this work is determining the number and location of drone charging stations for topology-dependent scenarios: rural areas and densely populated urban areas. To the best of the researchers' knowledge, there is currently no existing study in the literature that specifically investigates the impacts of topology on drone-assisted delivery. This study focuses on designing drone assignment strategies through optimization-simulation, aiming at minimizing charging station installation costs and operational costs and as a novelty, drone battery consumption is considered in the model design. Drone delivery order instances with different sizes and spatial distributions are generated to simulate realistic scenarios of demand and evaluate the optimization model to allocate the customer demands to stations and dimensioning drones fleet. Results show that considering parcel weight and flight distance has a significant impact on the performance of drone allocation to stations and highlight the effects of topology in the implementation of a drone-assisted delivery network.
Open Access
Understanding the dynamics of crowdshipping in last-mile distribution within urban mobility: a comprehensive framework
(Elsevier, 2025-10-01) García Herrera, Alisson Maurinne; Serrano Hernández, Adrián; Faulín Fajardo, Javier; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa; Gobierno de Navarra / Nafarroako Gobernua
Crowdshipping, a collaborative economy model that takes advantage of the crowd for the delivery of goods, promises to address the problems of urban logistics. This article integrates the literature to identify relevant factors that influence the success of crowdshipping, while addressing sustainability objectives. We use the PRISMA method, a widely recognized framework for systematic reviews that, by meeting high-quality standards, guarantees the reliability of the evidence. We systematically reviewed the literature to address three research questions: identifying factors that influence crowdshipping success, evaluating its contribution to sustainability goals, and evaluating the role of Operation Research (OR) in improving crowdshipping efficiency. Specifically, OR techniques offer significant potential for optimizing routing, matching supply and demand, and enhancing decision-making processes. Through this comprehensive and in-depth analysis, we provide information for future research, modeling, practical implementation, and potential policy recommendations.
Open Access
Horizontal collaboration in freight transport: concepts, benefits and environmental challenges
(Institut d'Estadística de Catalunya, 2017) Serrano Hernández, Adrián; Juan Pérez, Ángel Alejandro; Faulín Fajardo, Javier; Pérez Bernabeu, Elena; Estatistika eta Ikerketa Operatiboa; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Estadística e Investigación Operativa
Since its appearance in the 1990s, horizontal collaboration (HC) practices have revealed them-selves as catalyzers for optimizing the distribution of goods in freight transport logistics. After introducing the main concepts related to HC, this paper offers a literature review on the topic and provides a classification of best practices in HC. Then, the paper analyses the main benefits and optimization challenges associated with the use of HC at the strategic, tactical, and operational levels. Emerging trends such as the concept of ‘green’ or environmentally-friendly HC in freighttransport logistics are also introduced. Finally, the paper discusses the need of using hybrid optimization methods, such as simheuristics and learnheuristics, in solving some of the previously identified challenges in real-life scenarios dominated by uncertainty and dynamic conditions.
Open Access
Integrating simulation and optimization: a case study in Pamplona for self-collection delivery points network design
(Cal-Tek, 2023) Izco Berastegui, Irene; Serrano Hernández, Adrián; Sawik, Bartosz; Faulín Fajardo, Javier; Estadística, Informática y Matemáticas; Estatistika, Informatika eta Matematika; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa, PJUPNA26-2022
The disruptions experienced by the processes in the last mile delivery during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic raised the dilemma of up-to-date last mile approaches for Urban Logistics (UL) issues. Self-Collection Delivery Systems (SCDS) have been proved to be an improvement for all the players of the SC, providing flexibility of time-windows and reducing overall mileage, delivery time and, consequently, gas emissions. Differing from previous works involving hybrid modeling for automated parcel lockers (APL) network design, this paper brings a System Dynamics Simulation Model (SDSM) to forecast online shopping demand in the Spanish city of Pamplona. A bi-criteria Facility Location Problem (FLP) is solved by means of an e-constraint method, where e is defined as the level of coverage of the total demand. The experiment run considers 90% of demand coverage, in order to obtain the most complex network possible. The simulation and demand forecast was carried out using Anylogic simulation software and the optimization procedure makes use of the Java-based CPLEX API solver.
Open Access
Locating a biorefinery in Northern Spain: decision making and economic consequences
(Elsevier, 2019) Serrano Hernández, Adrián; Faulín Fajardo, Javier; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Gobierno de Navarra / Nafarroako Gobernua, IIM14196.RI1
Biofuels are emerging as a prominent renewable and sustainable energy sources in developed countries. In this sense, this paper presents a case study in which a biorefinery has to be sited in Northern Spain. Thus, the strategic decision of locating such a facility is deeply investigated through strategic policy evaluation. Then, tactical decisions ranging from purchasing and transportation policies to storage protocols are carried out. Only local and limited biomass can be harvested for supplying the biorefinery through a heterogeneous vehicle fleet. Moreover two different and mutually exclusive storage strategies are evaluated: direct supply from crops to biorefinery and using intermediate-collectors. Additionally, crop exploitation factors and biorefinery sizes are used to generate several scenarios in which the strategic decision of location as well as all the tactic decisions are made. Some mixed integer linear programming models are proposed to figure out all relevant decision problems. The results suggest that the Northwest study area as the best option to locate the biorefinery and recommend the intermediate-collector storage strategy. Moreover, the key information about critical biomass, crops and times are also provided.
Open Access
Is time more important than distance to optimize freight delivery routes? An approach using the value of time
(Elsevier, 2024-02-23) Alvarez Indave, Pablo; Serrano Hernández, Adrián; Lerga Valencia, Iosu; Faulín Fajardo, Javier; Estadística, Informática y Matemáticas; Estatistika, Informatika eta Matematika; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa, PJUPNA26-2022
Traditional approaches to optimize freight delivery routes are based on minimizing a distance-based cost function. New approaches use also time as the objective function to minimize. However, the trade-off between time and distance is sometimes unclear. This paper presents a new approach to optimize delivery routes in which both time and distance are used together to optimize delivery routes. For this purpose, the operating cost of a vehicle and the value of time have been used to convert time and distance into monetary units. Through the study of three different networks in Spain with different level of detail (the region of Catalonia, the city of Barcelona, and the old part of Pamplona), the results have indicated that minimizing both time and distance provides better results than the traditional approach, especially at a local level where congestion effects are more relevant.
Open Access
Managing transportation externalities in the Pyrenees region: measuring the willingness-to-pay for road freight noise reduction using an experimental auction mechanism
(Elsevier, 2018) Denant-Boemont, Laurent; Faulín Fajardo, Javier; Hammiche, Sabrina; Serrano Hernández, Adrián; Estatistika, Informatika eta Matematika; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Estadística, Informática y Matemáticas
The estimation of the noise impact caused by road freight transportation is critical to have acknowledgment of the ambiance pollution caused by road traffic crossing geographical areas containing important natural resources. Thus, our work proposes a within-subject survey where a Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) is combined with a laboratory economic experimental auction. Our study objective is to measure the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for reducing traffic noise nuisances due to freight transportation in the region of Navarre, Spain. A special focus is made regarding the measurement of the hypothetical bias, when a comparison is done between hypothetical WTP, coming from the CVM study, with real-incentivized one, as the outcome of the economic experiment. Additionally, statistical analyses are conducted in order to find explanation factors for these outcomes. Results suggest a strong evidence for an upward hypothetical bias (from 50% to 160%) indicating the income, the educational level, the gender, and the age as the main factors which explain that bias.
Open Access
Optimizing freight delivery routes: the time-distance dilemma
(Elsevier, 2024-12-01) Alvarez Indave, Pablo; Serrano Hernández, Adrián; Lerga Valencia, Iosu; Faulín Fajardo, Javier; Estadística, Informática y Matemáticas; Estatistika, Informatika eta Matematika; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa, PJUPNA26-2022
Traditional approaches to optimizing freight delivery routes are based on minimizing a distance-based cost function. New approaches also use time as an objective function to minimize. However, the trade-off between time and distance is sometimes unclear. This paper presents a new approach to route optimization in which both time and distance are considered conjointly. For this purpose, the vehicle operating cost and the value of time have been used to translate time and distance into monetary units. By studying three different networks in Spain with varying levels of detail (the region of Catalonia, the city of Barcelona, and the Pamplona city center), the results show that minimizing both time and distance yield better results than the traditional approach, especially at a local level, where congestion effects are more relevant. These findings are helpful for logistics companies to optimize their operations, as well as for public authorities who could employ these models to make decisions and create policies on logistics.
Open Access
Valuations of transport nuisances and cognitive biases: a survey laboratory experiment in the Pyrenees region
(Springer, 2021) Denant-Boemont, Laurent; Faulín Fajardo, Javier; Hammiche, Sabrina; Serrano Hernández, Adrián; Estatistika, Informatika eta Matematika; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Estadística, Informática y Matemáticas
We designed a survey that aims at estimating individual willingness-to-pay to reduce noise and air pollution arising from transportation activity near the Pyrenees in Navarre (Spain). Our participants cope with a series of contingent valuation questions and also with an economic experiment with real incentives about the same topic. Our goal is to identify several methodological problems in the valuation process coming from hypothetical bias, correlation effect and sequence effect when series of responses are requested. Our main results are that hypothetical bias is significant, because the willingness-to-pay is greater when the survey is hypothetical compared to when there is real monetary incentive. Likewise, the correlation effect also observes the same behavior since the willingness-to-pay for pollution mitigation is close to the one established for noise reduction. Finally, we have obtained mixed evidence for the sequence effect, being present only in the contingent valuation survey part.