Chapter 12. Modelling the Decarbonisation and Digitalisation Transition in Logistics Systems

The most important development in shaping the future of logistics is digitalisation, but while digitalisation and decarbonisation are extensively discussed in industry and scientific literature, there are no comprehensive visions of a digitalised, decarbonised logistics system. This chapter addresses the challenges of this transition management process, by framing and illustrating it with quantified scenarios for the future. As a starting point for the autonomous evolution of logistics systems, i.e., without considering politically driven decarbonisation targets, we take the vision of the physical internet. We critically assess this vision with respect to its potential to autonomously bring about the desired levels of decarbonisation. The remaining gap towards targets needs to be actively managed. We develop a transition scenario to complement the physical internet with decarbonisation incentives and assess their combined deployment in the freight system using a quantitative model that simulates transitions in the logistics system. We find that specific combinations of digitalisation and decarbonisation incentives are needed to achieve long-term targets.