Projet ALF : Aires de livraison du futur. Rapport final public du projet

This document presents the results of a research project called ALF (Aires de Livraison du Futur, Next Generation Delivery Areas). Its objective is to increase the use of delivery areas by prior booking and allow dynamic adjustment if necessary. Information technologies with mobile communicating devices and in-roadway sensors are used in front of the information management process system. We present first the problematic and the methodology. Then we discuss a first ICT system architecture based on human interaction which allows delivery rounds preparation and real-time adjustment. Next we present a computational process with a fully decentralized solution (multi-agent approach) implementing a distributed negotiation between delivery operators, allowing static delivery rounds preparation and their dynamic adjustments, which represent the real-world problem complexity. Then we describe different levels of a in the field information system delivering to concerned users the information on occupancy or availability of Delivery areas. Innovative services which can be added to delivery areas in order to increase their specificity are then presented. Different forms of mutualisation and scalable orientations are also discussed. The conclusion summarises the main configurations of the proposed modules and their use in relation with characteristics of the context studied, and the main contributions of the project are summarized.