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The global outbreak of COVID-19 has further exposed deficiencies in city logistics based on human and ground roads, such as poor emergency response capacity and high risk of infection during transportation. Metro-based underground logistics system (M-ULS) may be an innovative approach to deal with this city-level disaster due to its efficient operation, contactless and driverless characteristics. However, the market evolution process and the quantitative calculation framework of comprehensive benefits after the application of M-ULS are still unclear, which has become a problem of mutual restriction with the extensive application of M-ULS. This paper attempts to use the system dynamics method, based on the real-world simulation, to analyze the quantitative relationship between the M-ULS implementation and the city logistics performance under epidemic outbreaks. Wuhan city in China was selected as the empirical background, and five simulation scenarios were set under different implementation strategies of M-ULS in response to the epidemic. Six variables were selected to measure city logistics performance and M-ULS operation status, including demand fill-rate, unit delivery time, total deprivation cost, total transportation cost, total number of susceptible people, and utilization rate of M-ULS. The results show that M-ULS is effective in improving the performance of city logistics and responding to the epidemic. The delivery time and transportation cost have a strong impact on the market share of M-ULS. Finally, a set of incentive policies was designed to promote the adoption of M-ULS. The findings not only provide a method for evaluating the overall performance of M-ULS, but also provide a unique perspective for promoting the implementation of M-ULS and responding to the transportation challenges brought by the epidemic. • M-ULS is introduced to break through the plight of city logistics. • A set of effective macro-micro incentive policies are established to promote the implementation of M-ULS. • The delivery time, transportation cost and government subsidies play different roles in the market penetration of M-ULS. • The benefits of M-ULS have been analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within half a year, COVID-19 spreads to most countries in the world, as well as posed a great threat to the public health of human beings. The implementation of non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI), including travel ban, proved to be an effective way for controlling the epidemic spreading, e.g., the ban of inter-city transportation stops transporting virus through passengers between cities. However, travel ban could significantly impact many industries, e.g. tourism and logistics, thus jeopardizing the regional economy. This paper focus on assisting the national or regional government to make dynamic decisions on restricting and recovering intercity multi-modal travel services. Our model can characterize impacts of inter-city traffic on the spread of the COVID-19, as well as on the regional economy. By applying a reinforcement learning approach, we develop an online optimization model to identify the modal-specific travel banning strategy that can balance the epidemic control as well as the negative impacts on regional economy. The numerical study based on a network of multiple cities in China shows that the proposed approach can generate better strategies compared with some existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]