Using the Blockchain Technology for Trust Improvement of Processes in Logistics and Transportation

This thesis address the general problem of safe and secure transport of dangerous goods
(TDG). The TDG is very complicated to manage because of risk for the environment and
human life. Currently, it suffers from a lack of efficiency, trust, and t ransparency. In this thesis,
we propose a novel method to specify the workflow aspects of TDG by considering all TDG
process stages during its entire lifecycle. This method aims to facilitate the specifications of the
TDG workflow management system that is entirely based on existing regulatory frameworks
ensuring the compliance, trust, and transparency of all underlying processes. The proposed
system design method is based on the so-called model-driven architecture (MDA) approach
and enhancing it to consider blockchain properties. The first stage is the formal analysis of
the process of TDG and its alignment with the regulatory frameworks. The proposed design
method aims, at this stage, to allow the formal definition and verification of the design of the
system with regard to the regulatory frameworks. The next stages of the method rely strongly
on the model transformation that is a salient aspect of the proposed design method. Model
transformation allows to automatically discover peer system components and authorized
interactions. The last stage of the whole model transformations is the specification of digital
twin profiles for all potential s t akeholders. All the interactions in the real world between
stakeholders are transformed into interactions in the digital world, while the interactions
with the environment are achieved through the use of IoT. The proposed approach enables
interactions between components of the systems (digital twins, IoT devices, etc.) only if
this is compliant with the regulatory framework. Thanks to blockchain technology, our
design method allows improving trust and transparency in the process of TDG from the
perspective of stakeholder collaborations. Smart contract technological capabilities are also a
cornerstone of the proposed solution. This thesis also contributes to improving the semantic
of smart contracts to capture supply chain management specifications as well as dangerous
goods specificities in terms of t ransportation. Dynamic concepts related to the supply chain
management of dangerous goods such as time-related and geographic constraints, digital
certification, anomaly detection and multi-party smart contract, managing emergencies, and
shared responsibility have been addressed at the level of the smart contract. In particular, this
thesis proposes applying temporal logic for the formal specification and verification of smart
contracts. This thesis proposes an integrated approach for blockchain and IoT to support the
dynamic aspects in the supply chain of dangerous goods. Data collected from various IoT devices along the physical supply chain (goods, vehicles, country borders, etc.) are transmitted
to the blockchain and further processed by the system following the workflow logic that was
specified and automatically triggering related smart contracts and corresponding actions.
The last contribution in this thesis is the implementation of a proof-of-concept system to
validate the different aspects of the contribution, namely the design method, the trust and
transparency assurance, and the automatic triggering of actions and information flows.