1. Topic

2. Introduction

Goods transport is essential for trade and commerce and thus our prosperity but it is contributing to air pollution, noise and congestion. The negative effects tend to increase in most European countries and the awareness of the environmental impact and health effects has grown. This has resulted in a shift in long-distance goods transport from road towards rail and water, improvement of logistics and efficiency and to some extent a growing use of low-emitting vehicles. In urban areas however the road transport will be dominant and measures have to be taken to create both cleaner and more efficient distribution systems. This topic is limited to cities and urban areas.

3. Discussion

To overcome the negative effects of goods transport we can take measures mainly within three fields, preferably a combination of them:

• Improving the efficiency of existent transport systems and reducing number of vehicles and kilometres. Development of the logistic structure, building intermodal distribution centres at the edge of cities that can receive goods from lorries, rail or even sea for further distribution in lighter vehicles.
• Cleaner vehicles. For a start drivers can be educated in economical/ecological driving of heavy vehicles, saving fuel and reducing emissions. The market offers many low-emitting light vehicles well aimed at goods distribution in cities. There are several alternative fuels for heavy vehicles, for instance methane. The introduction needs support and encouragement – and removing of economical obstacles (taxes) for these fuels and
• Restrictions in time for use of heavy vehicles, zones where only low-emitting and silent heavy vehicles are allowed. Toll or charge systems. Restriction is always negative but may be necessary for protecting a medieval city centre, pedestrianised zones from delivery traffic. Economical restriction is always effective.

As mentioned above restrictions are not popular. There is some suspicion against alternative fuels and vehicles and they are often more expensive than conventional vehicles. On the other hand, there is no resistance against conventional vehicles and even in well-managed companies there is always some scope to produce greater levels of efficiency and cost savings i.e. reducing number of vehicles, vehicle kilometres and tonne kilometres.

The principle to achieve this is to establish logistic centres where goods is stored, maybe worked up or assembled to complete pieces of equipment, before it is distributed to the addressees. The logistic centre could preferably be run by a separate logistic company to which the hauling companies and contractors deliver the goods to be handled. Alternatively, contactors co-operate in a common centre and in the distribution of the goods, loading the vehicles to follow the smartest route. There can even be an agreement with enterprises within a certain area to deliver only on certain weekdays and times.

The municipal administration has many institutions that receive goods. So has, for instance, retailers with connected chains of supermarkets. By letting suppliers and contractors deliver to one address, a common logistic centre, the distribution can be optimised with less number of vehicles and less kilometres. The distribution follows a certain route on scheduled times. Delivery to a logistic centre also lets small companies, without the possibility to deliver directly to a single address, to compete in the procurement process. On the other hand, it requires careful planning of purchases.

4. Recommendation / Conclusion

To reduce emissions from freight transport and goods distribution in urban areas the number of vehicles and kilometres need to be reduced. Establishment of logistic centres, preferably at the city edges or other places pointed out in the land use plans for terminal purpose, where long-distance and other goods are delivered for further handling and distribution. Loading, routes and time schedules for distribution are optimised regarding environment, costs, time and reliability. The air quality will, of course, benefit still more if low-emitting vehicles are used for the distribution.

The main barrier for the use of these vehicles is the high costs of purchase (30÷60% higher than a for a conventional one), that may be faced only with public support based on different policies:

• Purchase of a fleet of clean vehicles by a public subject (e.g. a Municipality) to be used for its own services and rented to private operators;
• Exclusion of clean vehicles by traffic restrictions and parking/toll payments and

Discounted or free use of existing public maintenance plants (e.g. in public transport companies) for owners of clean vehicles.

5. Examples / Further Reading

In 1997 the European Association Freight & Leaders Club carried out a study on the management policies of urban freight transport in 11 European towns selected according to 3 different criteria: localization in high traffic density area, originality of initiatives for traffic management and dimensions variety.

In 10 of these 11 towns, “city logistics instruments” have been applied, often only at an experimental level. Quantitative and/or qualitative, positive and/or negative consolidated results are available for Amsterdam, Basel, Bremen, Munich, Paris, Utrecht and Zurich. In Basel, the “city logistics” application allowed a relevant increase of the productivity with a consequent reduction of 45% of freight distribution flows.

Moreover the new logistic centres stimulated the use of railway and inland waterway transport means for the long distance trips. In Amsterdam relevant benefits on the quality of the air have been reached.

Some difficulties have arisen in:

• Paris, mainly due to the lack of accompanying measures (e.g. restriction to lorries circulation) and obstacles by the operators to the trend towards a monopoly market condition;
• Utrecht, mainly due to reduced control activity on the circulation restriction, difficulties of cooperation among the operators, inadequacy of the logistic centre to many freight typologies (e.g. perishables, high volumes, high values, etc.) and consequent reduced level of its use;
• Zurich, mainly due to the high costs of the distribution.

In Italy different experiences have been carried out in Verona, Vicenza and Treviso (compaction of freight distribution in the historical centres), Milan and Siena (more extended city logistics issues).

Very often the freight interchanges outside the towns can offer areas for the city logistic centres (some examples in Bologna, Verona and Nola, near Naples). Moreover in Bologna and Milan programmes for freight distribution outside peak periods (early morning and night) have been experimented with ambiguous results, mainly due to the arising noise and vibrations caused by freight vehicles in these periods.

One of the most interesting experiments of new city logistic concepts is the ELCIDIS project, which has been running from March 1998 till August 2002 in six European cities (Erlangen, Milan, Stavanger, Rotterdam, Stockholm and La Rochelle) and was aimed at proving the reliability of using hybrid or electric vans and trucks for urban distribution, in combination with the use of urban distribution centers. In this experiment, the generally prevailing opinion about the technical disadvantages of hybrid and especially electric vehicles has revealed to be inconsistent. In these sites, vehicles operating from the UDC are able to run daily routes without interruption and are being recharged during their inactive night period. In spite of this, the vehicle investment costs will remain a very important obstacle if a substantial reduction is not foreseen. The French approach, where a split in costs is made between the vehicle and its batteries, is a firm step in the right direction, but has not yet been widely followed.

In Italy, many cities are taking into higher consideration freight distribution problems and a lot of analysis and studies are being carried out in order to individuate the best solutions.

The most relevant Italian initiatives are being carried out in the cities of Genoa and Siena.

Genoa Municipality has founded and organized a UDC serving the historical centre of the town; UDC is provided with a fleet of low environmental impact vehicles (electric or methane fuelled) whose dimension are small enough to well circulate in the narrow streets of the historical centre. A telematic and informatic system supports UDC activities such as monitoring of deliveries and vehicle positions, optimization of delivering tours, billing of goods arriving to the UDC. Most goods arrive at the UDC without any previous notice and do not use bar code, so that they have to be processed manually within the UDC. Contract conditions are to ensure delivering within three hours from the arrival to the UDC, so that delivers are dealt by following a first-in first-out rule and no tour optimization is carried out, although the software system would make it available. Anyway, carriers and retailers have declared their satisfaction for the service, while the UDC operators complain of the localization of UDC, which is too far from the area to serve, and of small vehicle size.

The delivery service is until now free and the Administration has in charge all extra-costs, but it is provided that, in the future, a payment will be requested for the service. It is supposed that stronger measures to limit access into the historical centre (no entry for non-ecological vehicles) could make suppliers use the UDC services even if they have to pay for them. For the experimental phase UDC operation has been given in charge to a local haulage company; at the end of the test three business management possibilities have been thought:

• only one company (or co-operative), chosen by means of an invitation to tenders, will buy vehicles and software and will operate the delivery service, while the access to the zone will be limited but not completely forbidden;
• only one company (or co-operative), chosen by means of an invitation to tenders, will operate the delivery service without buying any existing tool, while the access to the zone will be completely forbidden;
• carriers can use the UDC tools supporting the operating costs.

The pilot project carried out by Siena Municipality has quite different characteristic from the Genoa’s one. In Siena, the main feature is an Agency for City Logistics, which operates by means of an informatic and telematic platform (named eDrul), whose main tasks are:

• booking, planning and management of logistics services;
• information to delivery actors (retailers, consumers, logistics operators);
• coupling long-range freight transport and urban distribution promoting cooperation between operators.

The eDrul platform is being experimented also in other European city as Lisbon, Heindhoven, and Aalborg. In Siena it is also linked to a private logistic base, which eDrul uses to manage delivery and route planning, delivery monitoring, data warehouse. By means of this platform the City Logistics Agency of Siena aims at carrying out a coordination, both among transport operators and between logistic operators and their clients, in order to achieve the target of eDrul project, which is to increase the utilization rate of freight vehicles. As a matter of fact, Siena Municipality is planning to introduce a minimum load factor under which access in the inner city is not permitted. Other Italian towns, such as Roma, Florence, Bologna, are experimenting City Logistics features in the near future, though so far only studies and projects have been carried out.

Other examples:

Freight transport and goods distribution management in Göteborg

Freight Transport in Utrecht

Freight Transport Centre in Leipzig (“Güterverkehrszentrum”)

Further Examples:

6. Additional Documents / Web Links

Some good examples are described below. UK supermarkets have been active in this area of transport innovation. The ASDA chain has reduced 60 direct deliveries per day from suppliers to three consolidated deliveries per day. The Swedish retailer KF is cooperating with BTL to reduce the number of lorry kilometres by consolidating loads. They have opened a mixed consignment centre in Malmö where goods are assembled from 25 suppliers and are to be transported to 11 regional warehouses. This has the potential to cut daily deliveries to supermarkets by 75 %.

The potential for savings in lorry activity when competitors cooperate is even larger than when one company rationalises its own operations with consolidation programmes. In Düsseldorf, three department stores, Horten, Kaufhof and Karstadt cooperate in the distribution of goods to customers. One haulage company is used to reduce the number of trips. Karstadt (in association with Fiege) has reorganised its entire distribution system so that it can use rail more often. This switch to rail has reduced the number of journeys by lorry from 240 000 to 10 000.

In Malmö, Sweden, three city districts have joined in a common goods distribution project. 10 suppliers deliver goods to one logistic centre from where it is distributed to 183 municipal addressees along a specified route on fixed days and times. The latter (route and time) is an advantage – you always know when the goods arrive. The project was evaluated late spring/summer 2004 and turned out to be very beneficial from several points of view: delivery always in due time, less vehicles used which improved safety around the schools and day care institutions that were involved and less noise and pollution.

Some links of interest

· TELLUS – a Civitas project: http://www.tellus-cities.net/

· Urban distribution by electric vehicles: http://www.elcidis.org/

· DG Environment: http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/trans/freight/

· DG Energy and Transport: http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/transport/index_en.html

Other references

• Da Rios G., Gattuso D. - La mobilità delle merci nell'area metropolitana milanese Franco Angeli, Milano, 2003.
• Galaverna M., Sciutto G. – La trazione elettrica per il trasporto delle merci nelle aree urbane – 42° Convegno Internazionale delle Comunicazioni – Genova, 12.1995.
• Lacquaniti P. – La logistica nella distribuzione delle merci per una riduzione degli impatti energetici ed atmosferici: il caso di Siena – Università di Roma “La Sapienza” – Tesi di Laurea in Ingegneria per l’Ambiente e il Territorio, anno accademico 1999-2000, 11.2000.

Last Updated

25th January 2005