Summary
The annual meeting of the SINERGI project convened researchers, industry partners, and city representatives at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The consortium advances science and practice for meal‑delivery systems with micro‑delivery fleets across five cities—Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Singapore, Beijing, and Shanghai. Discussions focused on: (i) parking and mini‑hub location planning under uncertainty, (ii) rider and consumer behavioral modelling with an emphasis on well‑being, safety, and sustainability, (iii) display/ranking optimisation, and (iv) real‑time matching and dispatching.
Highlights
- Cross‑city progress. Teams reported advances in data collection, scenario design, and early policy insights, comparing commonalities and differences in curb space, rider safety, and platform strategies across the five cities.
- Methodological advances. We presented new developments that blend Operations Research (OR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), including stochastic/robust location models, discrete‑choice‑based behaviour analysis, and online/rolling‑horizon algorithms for real‑time dispatch.
- Shared simulation platform. With the Aimsun team (Lampros Yfantis, Serkan Özdemir) joining the consortium at a later stage, we are building a reusable traffic‑logistics simulation environment to test parking/hub layouts and dynamic assignment strategies end‑to‑end.
Consortium
Core scientific team:
Shadi Sharif Azadeh, Yousef Maknoon, Gonçalo Homem de Almeida Rodriguez Correia, Kuldeep Kavta, Dongyang Xia, Farnaz Farzadnia, Dolores Romero‑Morales, Hai Wang, Hai Jiang, Kun An, Miaojia (Emily) Lu, Niels Agatz
Core partners:
Thuisbezorgd.nl, Just Eat Takeaway.com, Meituan, City of Amsterdam, AMS Institute, Tongji University, Tsinghua University, Delft University of Technology, Singapore Management University, Copenhagen Business School
Special thanks:
Aimsun (Lampros Yfantis, Serkan Özdemir) for contributing to the simulation platform.
Funder:
JPI Urban Europe
Next Steps
- Simulation & evaluation. Finalise shared scenarios and indicators for cross‑city experiments and policy sandboxing.
- Comparative studies. Establish a harmonised framework that links parking/mini‑hubs – behaviour – real‑time dispatch and enables robust cross‑city comparisons.
- Policy‑oriented deliverables. Co‑create implementation playbooks and pilot proposals with city and industry partners, prioritising safety and sustainability.
- Open communication. Release selected tools and interim findings where privacy and data‑sharing agreements permit.
