The MIT CTL eJournal showcases select papers from our Research Paper Series, cohering around a new theme each issue. To receive our quarterly eJournal distributed via email by SSRN, subscribe here.
Issue Description
This issue of the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics eJournal examines the evolving dynamics of shipping across supply chains, highlighting research that spans behavioral, operational, technological, and policy dimensions of freight movement. As demand for faster, more flexible delivery grows, the featured papers explore how organizations and cities are responding to pressures on efficiency, sustainability, and infrastructure. One study shows how framing the environmental impact of expedited shipping can nudge consumers toward slower delivery choices, while another advances urban freight routing by incorporating compatibility constraints to improve last-mile operations. Complementing these contributions, a new Python-based tool enables multimodal routing and distance estimation across road, rail, and maritime networks, and a simulation study provides end-to-end insights from dock to final destination. Finally, research on curbside freight management examines how pilot programs evolve into institutionalized policy, highlighting the role of governance in managing urban logistics. Collectively, these works demonstrate that shipping is a multifaceted challenge requiring coordination across behavior, technology, and policy to balance speed, sustainability, and scale.
Table of Contents
- The Effect of Framing the Environmental Impact of Fast Shipping on Nudging Consumers To Opt for Slow Home Deliveries: Evidence From the Field
- Authors: Josue Velazquez Martinez, Sreedevi Rajagopalan, Jan C. Fransoo, Karla Valenzuela-Ocana
- Incorporating Compatibility Constraints in the Vehicle Routing Problem for Urban Freight Operations
- Authors: Claudio B. Cunha, Harol Mauricio Gamez-Alban, Christopher Mejia-Argueta, Cassiano Augusto Isler
- SCGraph: A Dependency-Free Python Package for Road, Rail, and Maritime Shortest Path Routing Generation and Distance Estimation
- Authors: Connor Makowski, Austin Saragih, Willem Guter, Timothy Russell, Arne Heinold, Spyridon Lekkakos
- From Dock to Destination: Toward an End-to-End Simulation Study
- Authors: Kevin Power, Yassine Lahlou-Kamal, Nikolay Aristov, Elenna Dugundji, Thomas Koch
- From Pilot to Policy: Examining the Transition Towards Institutionalized Practices in Freight Curbside Management
- Authors: Laura Palacios-Arguello, Juan Pablo Castrellon, Ivan Sanchez-Diaz
