The road based transportation operations are growing rapidly, but the current infrastructure cannot sustain the entire growth. At the same time vehicle utilisation and fill rates are low. Improved efficiency of the operations is a necessary way forward for road based transportation. Parallel to this, heavy vehicle producers are currently improving the efficiency with services accompanying the product that are focused on the driver and the vehicle performance. However, the data from connected vehicles required for these services only entail a small amount of the operational data generated by connected vehicles. The case study aims to answer how to use connected vehicle operational data in order to suggest value adding services in a dynamic road distribution system. The applied methodology is an inductive study with an explanatory approach to map the current and future service offerings of the case company. This knowledge is combined with an exploratory approach with interviews of transport planners and theories of Lean and fleet management. Primarily, it is concluded that the perspective of operational data requires widening. Considering not only driver and vehicle operations but rather the entire transport operation of a company. It is also concluded that value creation with operational data is possible during three phases of fleet management. First, if knowledge about order data is accessible, the planning of transportations can be improved using route optimisation and operations research. Secondly, it is possible to create value during the execution phase, throughless manual supervision and communication by transport planners. Lastly, both the currently used operational data and further data usage can contribute to a better understanding of the performance of a fleet operation and facilitate for continuous improvements during an evaluation phase.

El presente trabajo de tesis tiene como objetivo presentar una solución de optimización al proceso “Gestión de flota” de una empresa dedicada al transporte de carga por carretera de mercancías en general. Para la arquitectura empresarial se utilizó el framework Zachman, que permitió realizar el análisis del negocio, su entorno, estructura y procesos, bajo la perspectiva del negocio como caja negra que necesita descifrarse. Lo cual permitió que se comprenda el propósito y los objetivos para la cual fue creado el negocio. Adicionalmente, se utilizó TOGAF y ADM, del resultado del análisis se observa que el macroproceso de “Gestión de Flota”, es uno de los procesos operativos de vital importancia para el negocio, pues es donde se administra los recursos operativos del negocio, también, es donde se evidenciará la problemática que será motivo de estudio, análisis y planteamiento de solución. Por otro lado, se usó la Guía PMBOK, para poder gestionar el desarrollo del proyecto, determinando el alcance de la investigación, así como, el análisis del negocio, la definición de la arquitectura empresarial, el análisis de la problemática, la ingeniería de los procesos, la propuesta solución, arquitectura de solución utilizando tendencias tecnológicas como GPS, SMS Gateway, Machine Learning y BI, por último, se diseñará el prototipado de la solución y arquitectura propuesta. Asimismo, se utilizará la gestión de riesgos para poder mitigar cualquier incidencia. / The objective of this thesis work is to present an optimization solution to the "Fleet Management" process of a company dedicated to the road freight transport of goods in general. For the business architecture, the Zachman framework was used, which allowed the analysis of the business, its environment, structure and processes, from the perspective of the business as a black box that needs to be deciphered. Which allowed the purpose and objectives for which the business was created to be understood. Additionally, we use TOGAF and ADM, from the result of the analysis it is observed that the macro-process of "Fleet Management" is one of the operational processes of vital importance for the business, since it is where the operational resources of the business are managed, it is also where the problem that will be the subject of study, analysis and solution proposal will be evidenced. On the other hand, the PMBOK Guide was used to manage the development of the project, determining the scope of the research, as well as the business analysis, the definition of the business architecture, the analysis of the problem, the engineering of the processes, the proposed solution, solution architecture using technological trends such as GPS, SMS Gateway, Machine Learning and BI, finally, the prototyping of the proposed solution and architecture will be designed. Likewise, risk management will be used to mitigate any incident. / Tesis

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Mining activities around the world are undergoing constant change and modernization owing to technological and scientific advancements. Consequently, there are frequent proposals to streamline and enhance processes in mining operations. This study deals with ore transportation in mechanized mining units and aims to optimize fleet management using the Lean Six Sigma methodology to obtain a model in this specific process. The proposed method was implemented using a Lean Six Sigma instrument known as DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control). The case study was applied to an underground mine located in the Huancavelica region, Peru. The simulation showed that 24% of the time in the ore transport cycle is un-productive time and the improvement potential time represents 53% of the transportation process time.

<p dir="ltr">The emergence of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) signifies a pivotal shift in vehicle-based material handling systems, demonstrating their effectiveness across a broad spectrum of applications. Advancing beyond the traditional Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV), AMRs offer unprecedented flexibility in movement, liberated from electromagnetic guidance constraints. Their decentralized control architecture not only enables remarkable scalability but also fortifies system resilience through advanced conflict resolution mechanisms. Nevertheless, transitioning from AGV to AMR presents intricate challenges, chiefly due to the expanded complexity in path planning and task selection, compounded by the heightened potential for conflicts from their dynamic interaction capabilities. This dissertation confronts these challenges by fully leveraging the technological advancements of AMRs. A kinematic-enabled agent-based simulator was developed to replicate AMR system behavior, enabling detailed analysis of fleet dynamics and interactions within AMR intralogistics systems and their environments. Additionally, a comprehensive fleet management protocol was formulated to enhance the throughput of AMR-based intralogistics systems from an integrated perspective. A pivotal discovery of this research is the inadequacy of existing path planning protocols to provide reliable plans throughout their execution, leading to task allocation decisions based on inaccurate plan information and resulting in false optimality. In response, a novel machine learning enhanced probabilistic Multi-Robot Path Planning (MRPP) protocol was introduced to ensure the generation of dependable path plans, laying a solid foundation for task allocation decisions. The contributions of this dissertation, including the kinematic-enabled simulator, the fleet management protocol, and the MRPP protocol, are intended to pave the way for practical enhancements in autonomous vehicle-based material handling systems, fostering the development of solutions that are both innovative and applicable in industrial practices.<br></p>

Au cours des dernières années, les problèmes multi-agents ont été étudiés de manière intensive par la communauté de la théorie du contrôle. L'un des sujets les plus populaires est le problème de consensus où un groupe d'agents parvient à un accord sur la valeur d'un certain paramètre ou d’une variable. Dans ce travail, nous nous concentrons sur le consensus des réseaux d'agents avec une dynamique non linéaire de poursuite de référence. Nous utilisons des interactions sporadiques modélisées par la détection relative, pour traiter le consensus décentralisé des références. La référence est donc utilisée pour alimenter la dynamique de poursuite de chaque agent. L'analyse de stabilité du système globale a nécessitée l'utilisation d'outils théoriques propre de la théorie des systèmes hybrides, en raison de la double nature de l'approche en deux étapes. L'analyse est effectuée en tenant compte de différents scénarios de topologie et interactions. Pour chaque cas, une condition suffisante de stabilité est fournie, en termes de temps minimum autorisé entre deux mises à jour de référence consécutives. Le cadre proposé est appliqué aux missions de rendez-vous et de réalisation de formation pour les robots mobiles non-holonomes. Le même problème est abordé dans le contexte d'une application réelle sur le terrain, à savoir un système de gestion de flotte pour un groupe de véhicules robotisés déployés dans un environnement industriel à des fins de surveillance et de collecte de données. Le développement d'une telle application a été motivé par le fait que cette thèse s'inscrit dans le cadre du projet FFLOR, développé par le département de recherche technologique du CEA tech. / Over the last years, multi-agents problems have been extensively studied from the control theory community. One of the most popular multi-agents control topics is the consensus problem where a group of agents reaches an agreement over the value of a certain parameter or variable. In this work we focus our attention on the consensus problem of networks of non-linear reference tracking agents. In first place, we use sporadic interactions modeled by relative sensing to deal with the decentralized consensus of the references. The reference is therefore feeded the tracking dynamics of each agent. Differently from existent works, the stability analysis of the overall system required the usage of hybrid systems theory tools, due to dual nature of the two stages approach. The analysis is carried out considering different scenarios of network topology and interactions. For each case a stability sufficient condition in terms of the minimum allowed time between two consecutive reference updates is provided. The proposed framework is applied to the rendez-vous and formation realisation tasks for non-holonomic mobile robots, which appear among the richest research topics in recent years. The same problem is addressed in the context of a real field application, namely a fleet management system for a group of robotic vehicles deployable in an industrial environment for monitoring and data collection purpose. The development of such application was motivated by the fact that this thesis is part of the Future of Factory Lorraine (FFLOR) project, developed by the technological research department of the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA tech).

<div>The growth in online goods delivery is causing a dramatic surge in urban vehicle traffic from last-mile deliveries. On the other hand, ride-sharing has been on the rise with the success of ride-sharing platforms and increased research on using autonomous vehicle technologies for routing and matching. The future of urban mobility for passengers and goods relies on leveraging new methods that minimize operational costs and environmental footprints of transportation systems. </div><div><br></div><div>This paper considers combining passenger transportation with goods delivery to improve vehicle-based transportation. Even though the problem has been studied with model-based approaches where the dynamic model of the transportation system environment is defined, model-free approaches where the dynamics of the environment are learned by interaction have been demonstrated to be adaptable to new or erratic environment dynamics. </div><div><br></div><div>FlexPool is a distributed model-free deep reinforcement learning algorithm that jointly serves passengers \& goods workloads by learning optimal dispatch policies from its interaction with the environment. The model-free algorithm (as opposed to a model-based one) is an algorithm which does not use the transition probability distribution (and the reward function) associated with the Markov decision process (MDP).</div><div> The proposed algorithm pools passengers for a ride-sharing service and delivers goods using a multi-hop routing method. These flexibilities decrease the fleet's operational cost and environmental footprint while maintaining service levels for passengers and goods. The dispatching algorithm based on deep reinforcement learning is integrated with an efficient matching algorithm for passengers and goods. Through simulations on a realistic urban mobility platform, we demonstrate that FlexPool outperforms other model-free settings in serving the demands from passengers \& goods. FlexPool achieves 30\% higher fleet utilization and 35\% higher fuel efficiency in comparison to (i) model-free approaches where vehicles transport a combination of passengers \& goods without the use of multi-hop transit, and (ii) model-free approaches where vehicles exclusively transport either passengers or goods. </div>

There is an asymmetry in demand for transportation means of goods and commodities globally. One industry in which this trend is especially prominent is the pharmaceutical industry, where the European Union is by far the largest net exporter of pharmaceutical products globally, followed by Switzerland. The largest global net importer of pharmaceutical products is America, and given that many pharmaceutical products need to be transported in a cold chain, a niche within the transportation industry has grown – one that focuses primarily on transportation of high-value temperature-sensitive goods. Transportation companies working with circulating assets around the world need to determine how much capacity can be allocated to the sale of one-way trips (which may displace assets within the fleet to places in which they cannot be sold again due to the lack of business) whilst still allowing the sale of round-trip leases to continue. We conducted a case study within Company A that is a cold chain provider for air freight to provide context on how a heuristic model for capacity control should be developed, and incorporated this with learnings from theory within the fields of revenue management and fleet management together with literature in similar business settings. This resulted in a four-step model with unique planning horizons for each level, ranging from strategic perspectives for fleet balancing down to operational aspects of daily allocation and release of containers. We conclude which factors are essential for the context of the case study and showcase how a model can be constructed taking these findings into account. The thesis deals with the issue of capacity control for one-way leases. Other models have used pricing strategies to accomplish similar tasks and this is not included in the proposed model which is a limitation of this study, this is discussed and elaborated on. Furthermore, possible implications for the customer behaviour with the suggested model is discussed. / Det finns en global asymmetri i efterfrågan för transport av gods och råvaror. En industri där detta är speciellt framstående är läkemedelsindustrin – där Europa är den största exportören globalt följt av Schweiz. Den största importören av dessa produkter är Nordamerika, och givet att många läkemedelsprodukter behöver transporteras i en kylkedja har en nisch inom transportsektorn vuxit fram – en som fokuserar primärt på transport av temperaturkänsligt gods av högt värde. Transportbolag som jobbar med cirkulerande tillgångar världen över behöver bestämma hur mycket kapacitet som kan allokeras till envägsuthyrningar (vilket kan fördela flottan så att ingen efterfrågan finns för att sälja dessa igen) medan den fortsatta försäljningen av tur-och-retur-uthyrningar fortfarande tillåts. Vi utför en fallstudie inom Företag A, som tillhandahåller tjänster för kylkedjor gjorda för flygfrakt, detta för att skapa förståelse för hur en heuristisk modell för kapacitetskontroll kan utvecklas. Detta vävs samman med lärdomar från teori inom fälten intäktsoptimering och förvaltning och styrning av utrustningsflottor tillsammans med litteratur inom liknande affärskontexter. Detta resulterade i en fyrstegsmodell med unika planeringshorisonter för varje nivå. Modellen sträcker sig från strategiska beslut för balansering av flottan ner till operationella aspekter för daglig allokering och överlåtande av containrar. Vi sammanfattar vilka faktorer som är relevanta inom ramarna för fallstudien och visar hur en modell kan vara uppbyggd där dessa faktorer tas i beaktning. Avhandlingen hanterar problemet kapacitetskontroll för envägsuthyrningar. Andra modeller har använt prissättningsstrategier för att åstadkomma liknande mål och detta har inte inkluderats i den föreslagna modellen vilket är en begränsning i avhandlingen, detta diskuteras och vidareutvecklas. Möjliga implikationer på kundbeteende med den föreslagna modellen diskuteras också.

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a modern fleet management system in improving the logistics of transporting staff, goods and materials in Kenya Power & Lighting Company, a utility firm in power distribution. In today’s competitive marketplace which is characterised by rapidly changing business requirements, leveraging leading edge technologies and adopting best practices are essential in order to ensure sound logistical support that guarantees both effectiveness and efficiency in the transportation processes. The sampling procedure of one-stage, cluster sampling and the use of the simple random sampling technique were used in this study to select a sample size which was sufficiently representative of the whole population. Both the descriptive study approach and the survey research strategy were adopted to enable the collection of data in a manner that allowed in-depth examination while gathering information that explained the relationships between constructs, in particular, cause and effect relationships. The main purpose of this dissertation was therefore to establish that the use of information technology is feasible in transport industries, explain possible obstacles and also any major advantages of its implementation. Secondly, as regards the theoretical aspect, a broadened view on the use of online tracking for vehicles using a global positioning system is presented, together with practical examples, to illustrate its successful implementation in a fleet management system. The study concludes by offering suggestions and recommendations from the research results and the researcher’s experiences for future studies. / Transport Economics, Logistics & Tourism / M. Com. (Transport Economics)

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a modern fleet management system in improving the logistics of transporting staff, goods and materials in Kenya Power & Lighting Company, a utility firm in power distribution. In today’s competitive marketplace which is characterised by rapidly changing business requirements, leveraging leading edge technologies and adopting best practices are essential in order to ensure sound logistical support that guarantees both effectiveness and efficiency in the transportation processes. The sampling procedure of one-stage, cluster sampling and the use of the simple random sampling technique were used in this study to select a sample size which was sufficiently representative of the whole population. Both the descriptive study approach and the survey research strategy were adopted to enable the collection of data in a manner that allowed in-depth examination while gathering information that explained the relationships between constructs, in particular, cause and effect relationships. The main purpose of this dissertation was therefore to establish that the use of information technology is feasible in transport industries, explain possible obstacles and also any major advantages of its implementation. Secondly, as regards the theoretical aspect, a broadened view on the use of online tracking for vehicles using a global positioning system is presented, together with practical examples, to illustrate its successful implementation in a fleet management system. The study concludes by offering suggestions and recommendations from the research results and the researcher’s experiences for future studies. / Transport Economics, Logistics and Tourism / M. Com. (Transport Economics)