Advancing data-driven urban logistics: DISCO project featured at “Navigating the Last Mile” Workshop

On 11-12 June 2025, the workshop “Navigating the Last Mile: Innovation in Zero Emissions Urban Freight” convened logistics stakeholders from across Europe at the POLIS offices in Brussels. The event is co-organised by POLIS and the Brussels green deal for low emission logistics and supported by ALICE and the URBANE City Platform by URBANE project. 

As part of the programme, the DISCO project was presented by Dries Van Bever (imec) on 11 June. His intervention focused on the Ghent Living Lab and the development of a data-driven Urban Access Control (UAC) solution designed to improve the integration of vehicle access regulations in logistics planning systems. 

A collaborative approach to access management 

DISCO aims to accelerate the decarbonisation of urban freight by enabling digital collaboration between public authorities, logistics operators, and technology providers. The Ghent use case demonstrated how data spaces technologies can facilitate this process. Through a decentralised data-sharing model, access regulations (e.g., low emission zones, time windows, school streets) from the City of Ghent are digitised and integrated into planning software used by logistics providers. 

This integration was piloted through a collaboration involving: 

• City of Ghent – regulatory data provider; 
• VIL – Living Lab coordinator; 
• imec – technology partner; 
• Be-Mobile – developer of the UAC system; 
• Dropon – transport management system (TMS) provider; 
• Bicobel – logistics operator and test partner. 

The UAC enables automated routing based on current access conditions and provides both mandatory compliance alerts and soft nudges towards more sustainable delivery behaviours. 

Key insights from the Living Lab 

The Ghent pilot achieved several valuable outcomes: 

• On average, the system detected 11 regulatory alerts per trip, underscoring the operational complexity for transporters navigating urban access rules. 
• Integration of UAC into the Dropon TMS enabled a 25% reduction in vehicle kilometres for test routes in Ghent. 
• Transporters received immediate feedback on route compliance and access risks, improving operational planning and safety. 

Importantly, the approach supports both hard rule enforcement and soft policy suggestions, allowing cities to promote more sustainable delivery practices while improving transparency and predictability for logistics providers. 

Pathway to scalable implementation 

Beyond the pilot phase, DISCO is developing a roadmap for broader implementation: 

• Enhanced integration with enforcement mechanisms, including dynamic access control based on vehicle profiles; 
• Standardised interfaces to scale the solution across other cities and systems; 
• Monitoring tools to support urban freight planning and policy development through real-time data insights. 

The DISCO project exemplifies how structured data sharing and cross-sectoral collaboration can unlock efficiencies and emissions reductions in the urban logistics space. ALICE supports initiatives like DISCO that demonstrate practical and scalable contributions to our shared objective: achieving efficient and climate-neutral logistics systems in Europe. 

The goal is to build data spaces in which cities can provide all their policies digitally and companies can plug that data into their data lakes for decision making, planning and operation. The challenge and opportunity are in defining data models that are universally accepted and adopted by cities to provide Urban Access Control requirements, and connectivity and architectures that enable plug and play connectivity from the carriers and logistics companies. 

To dive deeper into this use case, check out our past webinar on the topic, which includes an extensive presentation of Ghent’s Living Lab and more: Webinar on Find Space for Mobility and Logistics Data – ALICE Alliance for Logistics Innovation through Collaboration in Europe 

For more on ALICE’s work in Urban Logistics, please visit our Thematic Group on Urban Logistics and for more information on digitalization and data spaces, visit Thematic Group Systems and Technologies for Interconnected Logistics.