Data-driven optimization in synchromodal freight transportation networks – CRC Lab

Freight transport networks aim to make the transport of goods from their production facilities to their end customers as efficient as possible. The use of logistics hubs and the pooling of goods flows make it possible to improve performance, both in terms of service and cost control, and to limit the environmental impact of transport. A major challenge in this context is the production of digital tools for managing such networks, which are essential to realising their potential benefits. In particular, the transfer of goods at logistics hubs makes it possible to consolidate flows and generate significant savings on long-distance links. This interconnection between successive routes nevertheless makes the planning process particularly sensitive to the hazards that can occur at all levels of the supply chain.

The objective of the CRC Lab joint laboratory is to research, identify and test the value-added opportunities that could emerge by exploiting learning technologies on the full range of available actual data, including to learn from event and time hazards and from differences between forecasts and actual deliveries, in order to produce optimized, agile and hazard robust transport plans. The challenge is to be able to capture, model and learn from the data produced on a daily basis so that it can be integrated into the network management tools. More specifically, it is a question of : i) identify and model the main sources of uncertainty responsible for the lack of agility of transport plans; ii) capture data and learn the major characteristics of these sources of uncertainty thanks to historical data; iii) design and develop algorithms and tools for the optimization of a freight transport network by integrating constraints or robustness objectives with respect to the sources of uncertainty modeled; iv) design and develop reactive algorithms and tools to integrate real-time data variability into transportation plans; v) integrate these algorithms into CRC Services' CoLivRi web platform to develop new commercial transportation plan optimization offerings. The project's ambition is to prioritize transportation issues on a national scale.

The consortium is composed of: the company CRC Services, which will provide its business expertise and digital tools for the mutualization and management of transport networks; the team "Systèmes Logistiques et de Production" of LS2N laboratory, based at IMT Atlantique, which specializes in operations research methods for transport optimization.