Land use and public health impact assessment in a supply chain network design problem: A case study

The establishment of freight transport facilities and logistics operations in urban areas tends to create substantial public health and land use burdens, due to the high concentration of people and the limited availability of land. This paper proposes a tri-objective supply chain network design model, to address the economic, public health, and land use impacts, associated with an urban freight transport network. The capability of the proposed model and methodologies are illustrated using a case study of the freight transport network in Can Tho city, which involves the selection of raw material sourcing and product distribution locations across rural and urban areas. The metric of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) is used to represent the overall public health impact of the transport emissions exposure in people living within 5000 m of the transportation routes. Geographical information system (GIS) tools are used to explore the population density distribution across transport network areas and to estimate the number of exposed people. The land use impact due to the presence of warehouses and plants is taken into account, using the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) method. The obtained design solutions under single- and multi-objective optimization are presented. The trade-offs among the contradictory objectives are also analyzed to obtain various alternative solutions, allowing geographers to understand how to design environmentally benign, urban freight transport networks, based on sustainable development preferences.