Multi-Agent Digital Twinning for Collaborative Logistics: Framework and Implementation

Collaborative logistics has been widely recognised as an effective avenue to reduce carbon emissions by enhanced truck utilisation and reduced travel distance. However, stakeholders' participation in collaborations is hindered by information-sharing barriers and the absence of integrated systems. We, thus, in this paper addresses these barriers by investigating an integrated platform that foster collaboration through the integration of agents with digital twins. Specifically, we employ a multi-agent system approach to integrate stakeholders and physical mobile assets in collaborative logistics, representing them as agents. We introduce a loosely-coupled system architecture that facilitates the connection between physical and digital systems, enabling the integration of agents with digital twins. Using this architecture, we implement the platform (or testbed). The resulting testbed, comprising a physical environment and a digital replica, is a digital twin that integrates distributed entities involved in collaborative logistics. The effectiveness of the testbed is demonstrated through a carrier collaboration scenario. This paper is among the earliest few efforts to investigate the integration of agents and digital twin concepts and goes beyond the conceptual discussion of existing studies to the technical implementation of such integration. Transportation is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [1]. Among all transportation modes, trucks are the second-largest source of emissions after cars and taxis. However, they are currently utilised inefficiently, operating at around 60% of their weight capacity, and approximately 30% of the distance they travel carries no freight [2]. Collaborative logistics has been widely recognised as an effective pathway to enhance truck utilisation [3] [4] [5]. This approach involves carriers collaborating through coalition to collectively fulfil delivery requests, achieving reduced total cost and travel distance through economies of scale. Two key barriers, among others [5], contribute to this challenge: 1) Lack of Trusted Platforms: Concerns business secrecy may deter carriers from sharing data with centralised platforms, despite the environmental and economic benefits. These barriers hinder stakeholders' participation in collaboration.