Road-based logistics suffer from inefficiencies due to less-than-full load vehicle movements. Consolidating loads through shared-fleet collaborations (also known as freight pooling) can reduce such inefficiencies, and thereby reduce costs, vehicle-kilometres (vkm), and related emissions and congestion. Utilising a significant historical dataset of vehicle movements, the potential cost savings and environmental benefits of a shared-fleet operation involving collaboration between two public sector organisations, integrating both static (fixed-schedule) and dynamic (client-specific) demand within a healthcare setting, were quantified. A Sample Collection Service (SCS; transporting pathology samples from doctors’ surgeries to centralised laboratories for analysis) shared spare capacity in vehicles operated by a Patient Transport Service (PTS; transporting eligible non-emergency patients to/from routine hospital appointments) as an alternative to engaging an external courier company. Results suggested that a shared-fleet collaboration servicing 78 surgeries, alongside normal patient loads in an average of 24 PTS vehicles/day, produced reductions of 16%, 13% and 12% in costs, vkm and carbon dioxide emissions, respectively. Decision-makers within public sector organisations that operate own-account vehicle fleets could pursue policies that actively seek out opportunities to deploy shared-fleet solutions to improve vehicle utilisation and therefore reduce public sector spending and the detrimental effects of road logistics.

Shared-fleet logistics involves collaboration between two or more companies to combine workloads and vehicle capacity to improve vehicle utilisation and transport efficiency and to reduce costs. This study considers the potential environmental and economic benefits of implementing a shared-fleet collaboration between two public organisations: a local government authority and a National Health Service (NHS) Trust. The research focuses on a specific case study using a historical dataset of vehicle movements, wherein the local authority’s fleet of electric courier vehicles is shared with the NHS Trust for transporting pathology samples from 78 doctors’ surgeries to a laboratory for analysis, thereby replacing the reliance on a third-party logistics provider. The benefits suggested by the results included a 17% reduction in costs, a 3% decrease in overall vehicle kilometres travelled, a 69% decrease in carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, a 40% reduction in vehicle numbers, and a 27% reduction in total duty time. These results emphasise the considerable potential of shared-fleet operations to alleviate both environmental and economic problems in urban logistics, encouraging public sector organisations to actively pursue the implementation of collaborative solutions to enhance the efficiency of their own-account vehicles while making positive contributions to environmental sustainability.

This study presents an optimisation algorithm to solve a collaborative vehicle routing problem with time windows. The algorithm was developed and tested on a real-world case study to investigate the potential for a shared-fleet operation involving public organisations, specifically, the Isle of Wight Council (IWC) and the National Health Service (NHS). The aim was to evaluate whether collaborative use of public-sector vehicles could reduce total fleet size, operational costs, and vehicle-kilometres travelled, while maintaining existing service levels. The study develops a two-stage optimisation algorithm that incorporates real-world constraints such as vehicle capacity, time windows, and pre-assigned mandatory stops. The first stage maximises the number of assignable collaborative tasks across fleets, while the second stage minimises the total travel cost conditional on this maximum assignment. Using historical data and a novel optimisation algorithm, vehicle movements were modelled to evaluate benefits in terms of cost savings, reduced CO₂ emissions and vehicle usage. The case study results generated by the algorithm suggested that considerable improvements could be made by integrating patient diagnostic collection rounds into the existing IWC minibus routes: (a 10.6% reduction in CO₂ emissions (644 kg/month) and vehicle kilometres (2300 km/month), a 20.2% reduction in working hours (219 h/month), and a 17.8% saving in cost (GBP (£) 3596/month) leading to IWC gaining a potential additional revenue of GBP (£) 54,829 annually while reducing costs by 22.4% for the NHS. The findings highlighted the potential benefits of shared fleet collaborations between public sector organisations, offering a model for similar collaborations in other public sector contexts.