The Design of a New Freight Distribution System in Venice

This paper examines the reorganization of freight transportation in the city of Venice, Italy. Most of the freight arrives from the mainland by trucks, but must be carried to the final customers by boats, through a network of small canals. The existence of constraints, related to the widths and clearances of the canals, makes it necessary to use boats of different sizes and capacities. In this paper, we analyze the transshipment operations from trucks to boats, and the organization of the boat distribution. Currently, the lack of an adequate terminal facility prevents items offloaded from land vehicles from being stored and sorted prior to being loaded on boats. As a result, items are transshipped directly from trucks to boats. This form of operation generates delays for the vehicles, resulting in very long queues, and inefficient boat shipments. Consequently, dispatched boats are insufficiently loaded with deliveries to be scattered throughout the city, creating an inefficient use of different vehicle types. A new system is deemed necessary by the players involved (i.e., the local government, and the boat carriers), especially because a more fluid and controlled traffic flow would have a positive impact on the ecology of this unique city. Recently, the boat carrier organization proposed to the local government a new transshipment terminal with a warehouse. This paper evaluates how such a terminal would be operated, so as to take maximum advantage of the newly available sorting and storage capabilities due to the warehouse facilities. The strategy that we developed would enable a more efficient use of different boats, consistent with the introduction of the new terminal. Similarly, the paper estimates the benefits of this new form of operation, using simple analytical formulae and continuous approximations, in lieu of detailed optimization methods.