SOLUTIONS TO THE DELIVERY LAST MILE PROBLEM IN THE COURIER SERVICES MARKET

Logistic systems are the basis of the functioning of any economy. It is on this that flows of goods and information are based. Due to the development of economies globally, each company must look for ways to improve its competitive position in the market. The best solution is to look for innovation. Their creation and implementation is a guarantee of development. It is similar in the logistics industry. The article analyzes and evaluates implemented innovative solutions in logistic as a way to improve the efficiency of processes.

The Importance of Contextual Understanding in Solving the Last Mile Problem

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many global industries and shifted the digital health landscape by stimulating and accelerating the delivery of digital care. It has emphasized the need for a system level informatics implementation that supports the healthcare management of populations at a macro level while also providing the necessary support for front line care delivery at a micro level. From data dashboard to Telemedicine, this crisis has necessitated the need for health informatics transformation that can bridge time and space to provide timely care. However, heath transformation cannot solely rely on Health Information Technology (HIT) for progress, but rather success must be an outcome of system design focus on the contextual complexity of the health system where HIT is used. This conference highlights the important roles context plays for health informatics in global pandemics and aims to answer critical questions in four main areas: 1) health information management in the covid-19 context, 2) implementation of new practices and technologies in healthcare, 3) sociotechnical analysis of task performance and workload in healthcare, and 4) innovations in design and evaluation methods of health technologies. We deem this as a call to action to understand the importance of context while solving the last mile problem in delivering the informatics solutions that are needed to support our public health response.

Evaluation methods of dynamic flexible transportation systems

With advances in mobile technologies, social networks and global positioning (GPS) in the digital world, alternative mobility systems (taxis, carpool, demand-responsive services, peer-to-peer ridesharing, carsharing) have garnered interest from both public and private sectors as potential solutions to address last mile problem in public transit. Although there are number of models to optimize flexible or dynamic transit operations there has not been any methodology to evaluate equilibrium demand and effect on social welfare for these systems in an integrated supply-demand context. This study lays the groundwork for studying the equilibrium of these systems, and proposes an agent-based adjustment process to evaluate the properties of a stable sate as an agent-based stochastic user equilibrium (SUE). Four sets of experiments are conducted: (1) illustration with a simple 2-link network, (2) evaluation of a dynamic dial-a-ride policy, and (3 &4) illustration using real data from Oakville, Ontario & Manhattan, NY. The experiments demonstrate that the proposed model with multiple sample populations can generate an invariant distribution of demand and welfare effects and it can effectively be used to measure the effect of changes in flexible transport services operation policies on ridership. Moreover, this study also explores flexible transport services as two-sided markets, and extends the proposed agent-based day-to-day adjustment process to include day-to-day adjustment of the service operator(s) as a two-sided market. Additional computational experiments and a case study are conducted. Findings confirm the existence of thresholds from which network externalities cause two-sided and one-sided market equilibria to diverge. The Ramsey pricing criterion is used for social optimum to show that perfectly matched states from the proposed day-to-day process are equivalent to a social optimum. A case study using real data from Oakville, Ontario, as a first/last mile problem example demonstrates the sensitivity of the two-sided day-to-day model to operating policies.

Evaluation methods of dynamic flexible transportation systems

With advances in mobile technologies, social networks and global positioning (GPS) in the digital world, alternative mobility systems (taxis, carpool, demand-responsive services, peer-to-peer ridesharing, carsharing) have garnered interest from both public and private sectors as potential solutions to address last mile problem in public transit. Although there are number of models to optimize flexible or dynamic transit operations there has not been any methodology to evaluate equilibrium demand and effect on social welfare for these systems in an integrated supply-demand context. This study lays the groundwork for studying the equilibrium of these systems, and proposes an agent-based adjustment process to evaluate the properties of a stable sate as an agent-based stochastic user equilibrium (SUE). Four sets of experiments are conducted: (1) illustration with a simple 2-link network, (2) evaluation of a dynamic dial-a-ride policy, and (3 &4) illustration using real data from Oakville, Ontario & Manhattan, NY. The experiments demonstrate that the proposed model with multiple sample populations can generate an invariant distribution of demand and welfare effects and it can effectively be used to measure the effect of changes in flexible transport services operation policies on ridership. Moreover, this study also explores flexible transport services as two-sided markets, and extends the proposed agent-based day-to-day adjustment process to include day-to-day adjustment of the service operator(s) as a two-sided market. Additional computational experiments and a case study are conducted. Findings confirm the existence of thresholds from which network externalities cause two-sided and one-sided market equilibria to diverge. The Ramsey pricing criterion is used for social optimum to show that perfectly matched states from the proposed day-to-day process are equivalent to a social optimum. A case study using real data from Oakville, Ontario, as a first/last mile problem example demonstrates the sensitivity of the two-sided day-to-day model to operating policies.

Optical Fibres Revisited

A history of the use of single- and multimode fibres in optic fibres is provided. Wavelength division multiplex is introduced, The same fibre can carry hundreds of wavelength bands. The longest stretch of optical fibre line is about 10,000 km. The greatest capacity achieved has been in the petabit/s range for a single cable with 32 cores, each one having 16 wavelength channels capable of carrying 680 Gb/s each. The ‘last mile’ problem still has not been solved in Britain. The relative advantages of satellites and optical fibres are discussed. Fibres working on different physical principles, e.g. holey fibres, have also been invented.