ParcelCity
The city of goods transportation
“ParcelCity” is a multifunctional serious game that interactively simulates the role of a future dispatcher in the logistics industry. By combining strategic decisions under time pressure, overcoming unforeseen challenges and the use of social skills, it offers a profound learning experience. This game is ideal for career guidance, promoting young talent, professional development and as a marketing tool. It provides a comprehensive insight into the complexity and dynamics of tomorrow’s logistics sector.
Awards
Client
Planzer Paket (Planzer KEP AG)
in cooperation with
ZHAW (Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Sauter-Servaes)
Contractor
Fiberjungle CORP (Fiberjungle AG)
Initial situation
The job of dispatcher in the transport sector is currently undergoing a significant transformation due to digital change. Traditional planning methods such as paper-based scheduling are increasingly being replaced by algorithms and AI. This technological development is leading to a shift in the skills required: Instead of planning skills, which were once the focus, social skills, empathy and quick decision-making are now becoming increasingly important.
Our task was to give young people and those unfamiliar with the subject an understanding of the job of the dispatcher of tomorrow in an entertaining way. In addition, the requirement was that our application could be used in a later phase for marketing as well as internal training and recruitment purposes.
Our solution
We present a serious game that is designed as an innovative educational solution and is dedicated to the challenges of the future logistics industry. Through realistic simulations, the game offers the opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of modern logistics and develop essential skills for an AI-driven future. With its strong focus on fun and hands-on learning, it is characterized by a dynamic, interactive and comprehensive learning experience that far surpasses traditional learning methods.
The modularity of the game allows the content to be individually adapted to the specific needs and interests of the user. This makes our serious game ideal for use in vocational training, marketing, further education and recruitment.
Game mechanics
Our game simulates a dispatcher’s working week in the future, with the complexity and difficulty increasing with each day. This progressive approach ensures a steady learning curve in the game. In close cooperation with our customer “Planzer Paket”, we have integrated a large number of case studies to make the most important activities and social skills of a dispatcher in dealing with drivers and customers tangible.
Players have to react quickly to calls and make decisions during the conversation that influence the course of the game. AI-generated voices give the conversations a lively and emotional character.
It is crucial to record incoming reports quickly and respond appropriately. This includes immediately forwarding positive customer feedback to the drivers to increase their motivation, as well as identifying and deleting spam emails.
Another important aspect of the game is break management. Players need to plan wisely when and where drivers take breaks to prevent fatigue and keep customer satisfaction high.
Spontaneous orders increase the excitement of the game. They require skillful assignment to vehicles, taking into account their capacities, which allows players to receive additional rewards.
In multiplayer mode, a live leaderboard provides additional ambition and competition among the players.
Particularly noteworthy
Sense of achievement
Players are motivated by a high level of interactivity and immediate feedback. Your successes are easily recognizable thanks to the points system, rewards and real-time leaderboard. These elements encourage the ambition to constantly improve.
Experiential learning
The learning methodology is based on reflection processes and experiential learning. Players can experiment in realistic scenarios, which makes it easier to transfer what they have learned into real-life situations. Repeated practice consolidates what has been learned, which underlines the educational value of the game and makes it an effective learning tool.
Modular design
The modular structure of content and logic enables flexible adaptation to different target groups. By combining different modules, specific learning experiences can be created, whether for young people unfamiliar with the subject who learn basic concepts in a fun way, or for experts seeking deeper insights into specific aspects of the dispatching profession.
Implementation
For the implementation, we opted for a futuristic design in blue tones that reflects technology and innovation. While the homepage picks up on the CI colors of “Planzer Paket”, the color scheme of the game takes you into a fascinating world of its own.
Technologically, we combine classic HTML5 web technology with interactive 3D presentations using WebGL/WebGPU. The responsive backend, based on PHP, interacts seamlessly with the frontend via a JSON API, enabling a fluid gaming environment.
The web game is specially designed for tablets and desktop computers due to the gaming experience, whereby a hint for optimal use automatically appears on smartphones. Due to the areas of use, all relevant data is downloaded at the beginning so that a possible network interruption during the game has no effect on the gaming experience. The periodic buffering of the current game status allows the game to be continued at a later date.
Conclusion
Since the first internal test phase at Planzer, the simulation game “ParcelCity” has continuously exceeded expectations, especially due to its successful and realistic presentation. Since fall 2023, the game has enjoyed great success in its application at ZHAW workshops, where it is used as part of the Traffic Systems at Schools course.
Further modules are currently being developed, which will be used both at trade fairs and for recruitment purposes in the future. This also includes a multilingual version.