Purpose: Field trips can change students’ attitudes and improve their learning performance, but they have rarely been investigated in logistics education research. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings from field trips that were designed to increase students’ knowledge of sustainable transport as well as to change their attitudes and behavioral intentions.Design/methodology/approach: A total of 104 logistics students participated in this longitudinal panel study. Non-parametric statistical tests were used to test for significant effects.Findings: Field trips build students’ knowledge, improve their attitudes and increase their behavioral intentions to use sustainable transport modes in the short and in the long term. Gains in knowledge exceed the results expected from traditional learning theories. Gender and school type are important moderating variables. Gender did not play an important role for knowledge gains, but for attitude and behavioral intentions.Research limitations/implications: More research is needed to generalize the findings to other populations and longitudinal panel studies are necessary to investigate a long-term effect of field trips.Practical implications: Field trips are an effective means for successful knowledge transfer and are suitable to trigger attitudinal and behavioral changes. The involvement of practitioners and the hands-on experience ensure that students combine theoretical with practical knowledge.Originality/value: This is the first longitudinal panel study that investigates the effects of logistics field trips, which were developed collaboratively by industry, educational and research institutions.

The growing global flow of goods, the increasing problem of traffic congestion and the inefficiencies associated with distribution and logistics or the...

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to offer an overview of the current state of research in a specific field of transport, namely synchromodality. This includes a conceptual discussion of this innovative transport concept to differentiate it from previous concepts as well as the identification of the antecedents, mechanisms and effects of synchromodality.Design/methodology/approach: The paper combines systematic and content analysis-based approaches to literature review to analyse and synthesise a final sample of 88 publications related to synchromodality.Findings: Synchromodality is a transport concept in its infancy which suffers from ambiguous definitions and a lack of theoretical grounding. The paper identifies four mechanisms which differentiate synchromodality from other transport concepts: real-time switching, integrated network planning, horizontal collaboration and mode-free booking. Seven technical and six managerial antecedents for these mechanisms of synchromodality are defined.Research limitations/implications: Existing research on synchromodality is largely focused on technical antecedents (e.g. information and communication technology, sophisticated planning systems). Suggestions for further research include managerial problems such as business models or measures to induce a mental shift and trust.Originality/value: This paper gives a structured overview of the research field of synchromodality and presents existing research from a content-focused perspective. It also indicates opportunities for future research and contributes to a generally accepted understanding of synchromodality.

The Danube River Basin is shared by 19 countries, which makes it the world’s most international river basin. More than 81 million people of different cultures and languages live in the Danube Basin and they all are interconnected through the widely ramified water system of the Danube. The cultural variety is not only a valuable attribute of this region, but it also causes barriers related to the transport of goods and passengers on the Danube waterway and its navigable tributaries. The abundant existence of administrative barriers in Europe limits the economic and environmental potentials of inland waterway transport (IWT) as a sustainable mode of transport. These administrative barriers consist for example in reporting requirements that vary considerably among fairway authorities and Danube countries. Most often, reports or data provided cannot be re-used across countries or is not available requiring additional input or additional reporting activities by the barge operator. The objective of this paper is to identify administrative barriers for IWT on the Danube and develop solutions for improved procedures and processes. Data is collected from a dense network of stakeholders operating along the Danube. National focus groups were held to analyse the procedures and administrative processes in inland waterway transport and identify barriers. Further, an online-survey has been set up to collect data. Potential solutions are developed in a cooperative way together with involved operators and authorities. The philosophy of lean administration suggests that non-value added activities (“waste”) must be identified in a first step to make processes more efficient. A diverse number of non-value added administrative barriers were therefore identified in the countries along the Danube. Afterwards, Port Community Systems are introduced as a possible solution to overcome administrative barriers.

A basic assumption of many scientific theories on the topic of decision making is rational behaviour. However, previous authors assume the existence of behavioural biases in freight transport which impede rational decision making. Hardly any research exists on behavioural biases in freight transport. To address this gap, we carry out a systematic literature review on the influencing factors of freight mode choice and provide empirical evidence for the occurrence of behavioural biases in the logistics sector. Fifteen logistics service providers and six shippers are involved in interviews and a focus group to understand their mode choice process and derive information on the existence of behavioural biases. Several biases showed to exist in the practical decision-making process. For example, decision makers tend to avoid complex options (principle of least effort), they stick to already tried and tested options (status quo bias, zero-risk bias) and they tend to make decisions based on immediate and easily accessible information (availability bias). These biases distort the demand for sustainable freight transport. We therefore conclude with several motivational, cognitive and technological debiasing strategies to reduce the negative impact of behavioural biases in freight transport.