Abstract
"This chapter presents two-echelon location and routing models and discusses their characteristics and solvability. It describes new paradigms in urban logistics and their challenges related to governance, green logistics, smart cities, and hyperconnected logistics. Designing distribution networks has critical impacts for city logistics stakeholders on cost, revenue and service levels to the city citizens. Using mathematical models to design the optimal distribution network is particularly constrained by the characterization of the operating environment and multiple factors such as demand, product portfolio, inventory levels, response time and returnability. The chapter focuses on the routing approaches dedicated to cargo bikes as this one is among the fastest-growing delivery modes in urban areas. A special emerging problem that challenges urban distribution and fits into the two-echelon setting is omnichannel retailing. The major challenge for cities and operators lies in the positioning of the transshipment and the resulting logistics organization: upstream for their supply, and downstream for delivery to customers."