How important is smart logistics for smart cities

In the context of the rapid development of mobile Internet, Internet of Things, cloud computing, and big data, smart logistics is gaining more and more attention from governments and enterprises.

As the lowest infrastructure in the society, logistics not only connects production and consumption, but also guarantees the pillar industries and advantageous industries of the city.

A city's logistics warehousing and distribution mode will directly affect the city's traffic load. Therefore, smart logistics is increasingly becoming a powerful grasp and strong support for the construction of smart cities.

The essence and characteristics of smart logistics

The essence of smart logistics is to realize the informatization, digitization, onlineization, and intelligence of logistics resources, elements, and services, and to achieve efficient allocation of logistics resources and elements and promote logistics services through the connection, flow, application, and optimization of data. Improve quality and efficiency, benign interaction between logistics and the Internet, and related industries.

First, smart logistics can promote the landing of inter-city drop-off transportation, common distribution within the city, and community shared express cabinets. Second, the data-driven smart logistics supply chain can promote city supply, consumption, and trade channels. Changes in resource optimization.

Wei Jigang, Development Research Center of the State Council, said: "Smart logistics mainly presents eight major characteristics: one is consumer-centric; the second is Internet thinking, platform thinking," openness, sharing, and win-win ", and innovative thinking; the third is multi-faceted connection." Connection, information connection, facility connection, supply and demand docking, etc., multi-directional integration; fourth, cross-border integration. "

“Fifth, data and digital infrastructure have become new production factors, and big data empowers the entire logistics chain and supply chain, becoming a key source of logistics companies’ new competitiveness; Sixth, automation, informatization, digitization, visualization, and intelligence. Faster improvement; seven is based on the mutual integration of the Internet, 'smart +' and 'logistics +' ecology, e-commerce, Internet and logistics interaction and mutual development; eight is a new division of labor system, large-scale social collaboration. "

These characteristics are all the qualities required for the construction of smart cities.

Liu Dacheng, deputy dean of the Internet Research Institute of Tsinghua University, said: "The main goals of smart city construction are to improve the quality of life and work of citizens, improve the efficiency of urban governance and intensive use of urban resources, and smart logistics can not only occupy urban resources as much as possible Reduce the waste and idleness of urban resources; it is also possible to reuse urban idle resources substantially to achieve the intensification of urban resources and the recycling of renewable resources. "

The integration of smart logistics and smart cities mainly focuses on the spatial dimension and the time dimension, and forms a city-based smart supply chain and smart industry chain ecology.

The success of the construction of the smart supply chain and smart industry chain ecology depends on whether all participants in the city can allocate resources at zero or near zero cost, and whether they can reduce non-standard products, services and processes. Standardizing costs and achieving scale, is it possible to cross-functional and cross-industry and reduce dimensionality to hit competitors?

The importance of smart logistics

Smart logistics and smart city are both overlapping and different. Compared with smart logistics, the connotation of smart cities is broader. Smart logistics is one of the important supports for smart city construction.

Liu Dacheng said: "In the past, the construction of smart cities mainly played a role of demonstration and display, and the application results obtained were relatively good in part. At present, the main problem faced by the accelerated pace of urbanization in China is the problem of urban 'bearing capacity. Smart logistics is closely related. "

Carrying capacity covers water resources, people's space resources, etc., as well as the protection of people's daily needs for material needs and traffic load, especially the traffic load of domestic metropolises. The problem is relatively serious. Smart logistics can play a blood transfusion role in the construction of smart cities and can support the normal and efficient operation of city life and work from the bottom.

At this stage, the overall logistics scale of the city is relatively scattered. Urban distribution is the last mile of distribution, but its current cost is dozens of times that of ordinary trunk logistics.

At the same time, due to the unscientific and low degree of intelligence in the overall logistics distribution plan of the city, the cost of urban distribution remains high and the logistics scale effect is poor, which largely affects the orderliness of urban transportation and urban streets, making the city Disorders at the end of the logistics distribution are disordered, which will have a greater impact on the city's appearance and appearance.

In addition, most cities are not scientific enough to plan the “reverse logistics” of waste generated by people ’s lives and work, and the waste discharged by enterprises, and problems such as untimely waste disposal are more prominent.

Therefore, urban logistics are now developing in the direction of smart logistics. The garbage classification policies being planned or implemented in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are a useful attempt of “reverse logistics”.

The core function of smart logistics is to use big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, blockchain and other technologies to on the one hand, improve the precise matching between consumer supply and demand; on the other hand, it can make the effective composite ability of social resources More balanced. Under such circumstances, effective logistics distribution guarantees can be achieved through effective buffering strategies, especially the aggregation of urban distribution resources.

"Smart logistics should focus more on multiple modes of transportation, multiple types of business circulation, multiple types of distribution and future information, including the use of robots, etc. They can make every distribution base and every logistics network in the city , Can be more effective resource matching and precise matching of supply and demand, which is also the most critical point of smart city construction. "Liu Dacheng said.

In Liu Dacheng's view, the importance of smart logistics for smart cities is mainly reflected in six aspects:

First, the city can be more effectively strengthened in meeting people's needs and guarantees;

第二,智能物流可以使城市的traffic load more uniform;

Third, ensure that the storage, trade, resources, and land used in urban distribution are used more reasonably;

Fourth, make urban blocks and communities more flexible and “self-consistent” in terms of resource connection;

Fifth, smart logistics informatization and smart cities can be effectively connected, so that the cost of digitalization will increase to zero with increasing scale, making the input and output data editing more efficient;

Sixth, smart logistics itself can ensure the city's "in and out" demand, so that urban materials, urban production demand materials and production emissions, and domestic waste treatment can be more effectively allocated to relieve pressure on the city.