The HOLOGISTICS consortium has officially begun preliminary discussions for Pilot 3, the Shared Resources Demonstrator for EV food logistics, following a technical visit to the Centro Agro-Alimentare di Bologna (CAAB).

CAAB is one of Europe’s largest agri-food centre, hosting more than 150 retailers who already operate within a shared logistics ecosystem. This makes it an ideal real-world environment to demonstrate pooled logistics and shared electric vehicle (EV) resources at scale.

The teams from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Politecnico di Milano, ICOOR and CPR System visited the facilities to begin detailed discussions on the technical and operational implementation of the pilot.

A real-world testbed for shared resources

HOLOGISTICS’ Pilot 3 will focus on demonstrating the scalability and decarbonisation potential of shared logistics models for fresh and temperature-controlled goods. The visit allowed partners to:

• analyse existing EV charging infrastructure and photovoltaic assets
• review warehouse and loading/unloading operations
• assess integration possibilities with CAAB’s NAM digital logistics platform
• evaluate operational constraints and optimisation opportunities

The pilot will integrate several HOLOGISTICS components, including shared EV fleet optimisation, IoT-enabled pooled logistics visibility solutions and advanced AI-based scheduling tools.

From concept to operational feasibility

A key objective of the visit was to verify the feasibility of synchronising logistics flows with EV charging operations, maximising renewable energy use while maintaining efficiency in goods handling and distribution.

By testing these innovations in a complex, multi-operator hub, HOLOGISTICS aims to demonstrate measurable reductions in emissions, improved asset utilisation and increased adoption of zero-emission vehicles.

Pilot 3 represents a crucial step toward proving that shared resources and digital coordination can make freight logistics more sustainable, resilient and scalable across Europe.

HOLOGISTICS: innovative tech for greener cargo

HOLOGISTICS is a European Union-funded research project that accelerates the transition to zero-emission, data-driven, and highly efficient freight transport. The project develops an open and scalable ecosystem for multimodal logistics, enabling seamless interoperability between vehicles, vessels, nodes, and digital platforms.

By integrating zero-emission transport units, advanced IoT interfaces, AI-enabled flow optimization, and collaborative resource-sharing models, HOLOGISTICS demonstrates practical pathways toward a new Physical Internet for Europe—reducing emissions and improving efficiency across European supply chains through real-world demonstrators.

Co-funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement No 101202556 and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).

Learn more: hologistics.eu
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