Issue

Industry 4.0, Physical Internet and Sharing Economy are developments that have unforeseeable consequences for freight traffic and its stakeholders. The industry is already facing increasing market volatility. The effects range from more difficult capacity planning to negative economic, environmental and social impacts, such as a lack of capacity utilization or high standby times. How can the business development for the respective actors be predicted on such a dynamic market?

The aim of the “ProKapa” research project is to support transport service providers by means of suitable methods, to be able to respond flexibly and in a way that is adaptable to more dynamic markets and to prepare themselves for the challenges and innovations of the “physical internet” at an early stage.

Our contribution

The research team is developing a cybernetic planning approach to optimizing workload, implementing the following points:

  • Continuous demand modeling (forecast of transportation requirements)
  • integrated capacity planning of means of transport and personnel for optimal resource distribution in the network (avoidance of empty miles)
  • Smoothing of transport requirements through price policy measures (constant utilization)

Benefit

The results of »ProKapa« are methods and tools for the pre-planning of transportation requirements. The combination of these methods illustrates how increased data availability and its processing (predictive analytics, forecasting, big data) contribute to the decision-making process of transport service providers with regard to ecologically, economically and socio-culturally sustainable development.

Partner and Funding

  • Program: »Mobilität der Zukunft«, FFG
  • Short title of the project: ProKapa
  • Long title of the project: Dynamisches prognosegestütztes Kapazitätsmanagement zur Umsetzung von Rahmenbedingungen des Physical Internet
  • Proposer: Fraunhofer Austria Research GmbH
  • Project partner: RISC Software GmbH, Müller Transporte GmbH. UnitCargo Speditionsges.m.b.H.
  • Duration of the project: October 2017 to September 2019
  • Total volume: EUR 494,783