Description:

Northwestern University Transportation Center presents:

Understanding the ‘Crowd’ in Crowd-shipping: Analyzing User Behaviors and Interactions in a US platform

Aymeric Punel, Northwestern University

Abstract: Crowd-shipping is an emerging delivery concept where logistics operations are carried out by using excess vehicle capacity and matching senders with occasional drivers from the crowd. The novel shipping system is aligned with the growth in on-demand and sharing economy mobility services. Early studies of crowd-shipping suggest a potential for economic, social and environmental benefits, while also highlighting many challenges relating to the scaling and behavior of crowd-sourced participants. The role and impact of crowd-shipping is likely to increase as shipping demand and e-retail is growing.
This talk will give an overview and outlook of the crowd-shipping industry. It will then focus on the users of the platform by studying their characteristics, their behavior, as well as their motivation for participating in a crowd-sourced delivery service. Finally, the communication and network formation between users will be investigated in order to understand how drivers and senders from the crowd interact with each other.

Bio: Aymeric Punel is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University. He is part of the Mobility and Behavior Lab, led by Professor Amanda Stathopoulos. His research focuses on the behavior and acceptability aspects in designing a crowdsourced delivery service, as well as the assessment of the performance of such a system. He was selected as one of the recipients of the 2018-19 Dissertation Year Fellowship (DYF) awarded by the Northwestern University Transportation Center (NUTC). Prior to joining Northwestern, Aymeric received a master’s degree in civil engineering from Ecole Speciale des Travaux Publics (ESTP), Paris.