MISSION AND OBJECTIVES

MISSION

The Urban Logistics Chair is a Research and Education Chair at MINES ParisTech.

Its mission is to develop a coherent and sustainable vision of logistics in urban areas. For this, the Chair proposes a systemic approach to urban logistics, extending the traditional approach by integrating the technological know-how of the Centre for Robotics at MINES ParisTech.

OBJECTIVES OF THE CHAIR

  • Develop operational and theoretical knowledge in the field of urban logistics, making the technical approach the common foundation of new projects.
  • Use the latest advances in automation and robotics, developed at MINES ParisTech, to provide information, models, tools and experiments necessary to the research topics addressed.
  • Become a place of exchange between the stakeholders of urban logistics, in particular by offering high level training, study missions, and symposiums in order to link theory and practice.

ORIENTATIONS

In the context of intelligent cities, the Urban Logistics Chair at Mines ParisTech  aims to develop a systemic approach to urban logistics, extending the traditional approach by integrating the technological know-how of the Robotics Center of MINES ParisTech.  Accordingly, the Chair.  Indeed, the vision of the Chair implies a trade-off between different stakeholders (local residents, professionals and communities) who have their own expectations (social, economic, ecological).

These stakes, which are often antagonistic, open several research perspectives with regard to advances in complex systems. We propose an approach based on the 3 principles of robotics applied to urban logistics:

  1. Perception: how to characterize logistic flows in urban areas and their underlying constraints, challenges and opportunities?
  2. Decision: how to plan operations, pool, optimize, and reduce negative externalities?
  3. Action: how to measure today’s systems, execute plans and design the future of urban logistics?

This approach will provide information, models, tools and experiments that will help build a coherent and sustainable vision of urban logistics. The scientific project is based on three axes of work.