At IPIC 2026 in Bordeaux, the plenary session “Optimization in Sustainable Operations in Urban Logistics” brought together academic and industry perspectives on how cities can respond to growing logistics demands while improving efficiency, sustainability and operational performance.
Moderated by Shenle Pan, the session featured an academic keynote by Dr. Lei Zhao (Tsinghua University) and industrial perspectives from Yixiao Huang (SF Express) and Satoki Inoue (Aidiot). The session also included a PhD 3-minute Pitch by Cécile Dupouy (KEDGE Business School).
Optimising urban logistics through coordination and decomposition
Opening the session, Dr. Lei Zhao presented research on optimisation methods for increasingly complex urban logistics systems. He explained how Physical Internet principles align closely with operations research approaches that seek to balance decentralisation, modularisation and coordination across logistics networks. (....)