The Physical Internet

Abstract

The Physical Internet is a new paradigm inspired by the Digital Internet. The aim of the Physical Internet is, like the Digital Internet, to interconnect heterogeneous network services. The three main motivations for such a system are to better serve the new fragmented demand while increasing efficiency up to an order of magnitude and resilience at the same time. A case study illustrates the basic principles and concludes the basic sections. In the advanced sections, the required changes are described. Such a breakthrough in performance will not be achieved without major changes of components of current supply chains. New building blocks such as containers, information protocols, open hubs and marketplaces are described to illustrate the end vision. We already have several business cases from start-ups in line with limited but genuine implementation of the Physical Internet principles. In the state of the art sections, the potential unleashed by interconnected networks is explained with two main examples: container routing and decentralized inventory management.