Intelligent freight-transportation systems: Assessment and the contribution of operations research
abstract
While it is certainly too early to make a definitive assessment of the effectiveness of Intelligent
Transportation Systems (ITS), it is not to take stock of what has been achieved and to
think about what could be achieved in the near future. In our opinion, ITS developments
have been up to now largely hardware-driven and have led to the introduction of many
sophisticated technologies in the transportation arena, while the development of the software
component of ITS, models and decision-support systems in particular, is lagging
behind. To reach the full potential of ITS, one must thus address the challenge of making
the most intelligent usage possible of the hardware that is being deployed and the huge
wealth of data it provides. We believe that transportation planning and management disciplines,
operations research in particular, have a key role to play with respect to this challenge.
The paper focuses on Freight ITS: Commercial Vehicle Operations and Advanced
Fleet Management Systems, City Logistics, and electronic business. The paper reviews main
issues, technological challenges, and achievements, and illustrates how the introduction of
better operations research-based decision-support software could very significantly
improve the ultimate performance of Freight ITS.