A method for controlling a material flow system, wherein the material flow system includes vehicles for transporting goods packages, wherein the vehicles communicate autonomously among one another in the material flow system, wherein the vehicles move by movement steps along a material flow path from a starting node to a target node, and wherein a logical clock is associated with each node. The method includes providing each movement step of a first vehicle with a time stamp, carrying out movement steps such that for the first vehicle, successive movement steps assume monotonically increasing values for the time stamp, and for each node that is traversed, providing an outgoing movement step of the first vehicle with value of a time stamp which is less than or equal to a value of a time stamp for a subsequently incoming movement step of a second vehicle.