Rural transit districts and intercity bus carriers are an important link within Texas' multimodal transportation system. Without such service providers, many rural residents that are transit dependent would be forced to either relocate or find other means of transportation. Furthermore, with continued growth of business to consumer e-commerce demand for package shipping services and rural areas face a particular challenge in finding efficient "last mile" delivery of goods (from freight drop to final destination). Rural transit districts operate demand response door-to-door service throughout Texas, providing critical connections to goods and services. The network of Texas rural transit districts may effectively bridge the last mile gap in package shipping from the freight drop point to the final destination by providing last mile package delivery services in cooperation with freight companies. Last mile package delivery service may present an opportunity for rural transit operators to diversify revenue sources and improve overall cost effectiveness while maintaining existing door-to-door service. This project researched the potential to address current gaps in existing package delivery service with the network of intercity bus and rural transit districts in Texas. Documentation includes best practices, challenges, policy implications, and the potential for revenue generation, and a guidebook. The guidebook is designed to inform rural transit operators of how to implement a package delivery service and includes documentation of lessons learned from pilot package delivery services implemented as part of the research project.

"This guidebook provides public transit agencies in rural Texas communities with the information necessary to implement a package delivery service in coordination with a private package delivery partner"--Page iii.

"This guidebook provides public transit agencies in rural Texas communities with the information necessary to implement a package delivery service in coordination with a private package delivery partner"--Page viii.

In many cities, public transit has been struggling to maintain service quality and increase ridership levels, leaving many systems in dire financial state. Simultaneously, urban centers are increasingly stringent on package carriers to decrease the negative externalities of vehicular traffic which they amplify, such as pollution and congestion. This thesis develops a robust methodology for identifying, at the strategic level, whether using public transit to perform part of last-mile parcel distribution in a capacitated environment is feasible and economically viable for both the transit agency and the carrier. A mathematical model to solve the transit-enabled multi-echelon location routing problem (TE-ME-LRP) which leverages continuous approximation (CA) for route cost estimation is presented. First, we defined the model as a static and deterministic problem. Then, we augment it to include demand uncertainty and model the problem as a two-stage stochastic program. In a case study for the Boston area, we find that the excess capacity in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) subway network far exceeds the package capacity needs for a large scale commercial package carrier. In an extensive set of experiments that aim to assess the model sensitivity, we find that operationally, this is an economically viable business model under certain vehicle types. Additionally, incorporating demand stochasticity sets the stage for more robust operations, as measured by the expected daily operating cost of the system, and enforcing last-mile delivery (LMD) service consistency only marginally impacts the bottom line. Lastly, we explore the impact of a pay-as-you-go payment scheme for the satellite facilities and conclude that this flexibility allows the carriers to respond more effectively to changes in demand patterns, yielding reduced operational expenditures. If designed under favorable conditions, the use of transit-enabled last-mile delivery (TE-LMD) results in significant savings for the carriers, a new revenue stream for the transit agency, and a reduction in pollutant emissions.

City distribution plays a key role in supporting urban lifestyles, helping to serve and retain industrial and trading activities, and contributing to the competitiveness of regional industry. This book aims to improve knowledge in this area by recognizing and evaluating the problems within the urban freight transport system.

Since 2007, the biennial International Conferences on Dynamics in Logistics (LDIC) offers researchers and practitioners from logistics, operations research, production, industrial and electrical engineering as well as from computer science an opportunity to meet and to discuss the latest developments in this particular research domain. From February 12th to 14th 2020 for the seventh time, LDIC 2020 is held in Bremen, Germany. Similar to its six predecessors, the Bremen Research Cluster for Dynamics in Logistics (LogDynamics) organizes this conference. The spectrum of topics reaches from the dynamic modeling, planning and control of processes over supply chain management and maritime logistics to innovative technologies and robotic applications for cyber-physical production and logistics systems. LDIC 2020 provides a forum for the discussion of advances in that matter. The conference program consists of three invited keynote speeches and 51 papers selected by a severe double-blind reviewing process. Within these proceedings all the papers are published. By this, the proceedings give an interdisciplinary outline on the state of the art of dynamics in logistics as well as identify challenges and solutions for logistics today and tomorrow.