Research

The mobility transition requires measures for sustainable and efficient commercial transportation. Innovative governance processes are crucial in order to overcome the associated challenges of commercial transportation in the context of the mobility transition. Ideally, the administration should have innovative processes and methods at hand to operationalize the goals in order to be able to face the increasing complexity of urban logistics and the requirements of climate protection and sustainability. Through new forms of collective and cooperative action, cities can better coordinate the multitude of stakeholders and their respective activities and create opportunities for participatory design. The project objective is to establish innovative and consolidated governance processes and methods for collective action and effective monitoring of innovations in close cooperation with practitioners, thereby supporting the target systems of the Vienna Climate Roadmap and the VIENNA 2030 strategy.

The cooperation project GAME contributes to the core ambition of the EPICUR alliance through the development of transforming research, collaborative knowledge exchange, and educational and transfer practices to train students and stakeholders helping to overcome the dramatic challenges along forest value chains. Our research approach integrates agent-based simulation models to bridge ecology, forestry, and supply chain management research. We aim to avoid process breaks, which enables the closing of critical research gaps within interdisciplinary projects and joint publications to boost innovations beyond borders. Our educational and knowledge transfer approach is based on our shared set of European values, aiming to deepen and widen the European learning experience. We aim to organize workshops and an online international wood supply chain competition, which empower the digital transformation through our serious game-based learning approaches. Furthermore, we discover and discuss the different governance structures of our research institutions and collect mobility experience through the planned research and teaching stays within our project. We stimulate synergies in agent-based modeling as well as in teaching methods for university courses on forest logistics. This enables the development of a strong fundament for promising joint research projects such as the Future Forests Cluster of Excellence application at the German Research Foundation. Consequently, the EPICUR seed funding supports our ambitions to intensify the joint cooperation ambitions of the BOKU University, University of Freiburg, and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

The aim of the project is to improve the pulpwood supply chain for the haulier and wood purchasing stakeholder groups and to make the entire process more robust and efficient. In the project, specific measures to improve efficiency and resource conservation are defined for selected hauliers and the PHA a) and tested and improved in real processes. Typical measures include the establishment of two-way transport and the reduction of empty driving distances (to the next truck), active unloading management at the plant and the evaluation of broken transports between crane and articulated lorries, as well as the use of timber storage and handling areas. In area b) of qualification, a ‘timber driver’ ABC is to be developed in order to provide new drivers with solid training for the transport of round timber