Fleet Coalitions: A Collaborative Planning Model Balancing Economic and Environmental Costs for Sustainable Multimodal Transport

Anna Laura Pala and Giuseppe Stecca ()
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Anna Laura Pala: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Informatica, Automatica, e Gestionale “A. Ruberti", Università la Sapienza di Roma, 00185 Roma, Italy
Giuseppe Stecca: Istituto di Analisi dei Sistemi ed Informatica “Antonio Ruberti”, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Via dei Taurini 19, 00185 Roma, Italy

Logistics, 2025, vol. 9, issue 3, 1-22

Abstract: Background: Sustainability is a critical concern in transportation, notably in light of governmental initiatives such as cap-and-trade systems and eco-label regulations aimed at reducing emissions. In this context, collaborative approaches among carriers, which involve the exchange of shipment requests, are increasingly recognized as effective strategies to enhance efficiency and reduce environmental impact. Methods: This research proposes a novel collaborative planning model for multimodal transport designed to minimize the total costs associated with freight movements, including both transportation and C O 2 emissions costs. Transshipments of freight between vehicles are modeled in the proposed formulation, promoting carrier coalitions. This study incorporated eco-labels, representing different emission ranges, to capture shipper sustainability preferences and integrated authority-imposed low-emission zones as constraints. A bi-objective approach was adopted, combining transportation and emission costs through a weighted sum method. Results: A case study on the Naples Bypass network (Italy) is presented, highlighting the model’s applicability in a real-world setting and demonstrating the effectiveness of collaborative transport planning. In addition, the model quantified the benefits of collaboration under low-emission zone (LEZ) constraints, showing notable reductions in both total costs and emissions. Conclusions: Overall, the proposed approach offers a valuable decision support tool for both carriers and policymakers, enabling sustainable freight transportation planning.

Keywords: collaborative transport; eco-labels; biobjective problem; mathematical modeling; sustainable mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L8 L80 L81 L86 L87 L9 L90 L91 L92 L93 L98 L99 M1 M10 M11 M16 M19 R4 R40 R41 R49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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