by Walther Ploos van Amstel
Udelv unveiled its autonomous, electric, last-mile delivery vehicle and made the first public road test deliveries from Draeger’s Market in San Mateo to two nearby customers. The deliver route was a 3 kilometre loop with traffic lights, lane changes, unsignalized left turns and two delivery stops.
People complain on social media about light commercial vehicles (LCVs) in their neighborhood. There are too many, it’s not safe and not healthy. Is that criticism justified? Only 2 to 3 percent of the nearly 1 million LCVs in the Netherlands are involved in the delivering home shopping parcels to consumers.
Urban Consolidation Centres (UCCs) are often conceived as an enabler to alleviate negative effects associated with distribution of goods in cities, such as traffic congestion and hazardous emissions. UCCs not only have the potential to reduce these effects but also provide alternative distribution solutions by introducing new transhipment points.
UK-based company Ocado has been credited with revolutionising the UK’s e-grocery arena. An online player with cutting-edge technology, a centralised hub-based delivery system and lucrative partnerships with high-end retailers, and Ocado is profitable. Sales in 2017 are expected to grow towards 1,5 bln Euro. Net margin was 1%.
More European cities see construction logistics as part of urban freight policies, but also a lot of European cities do not have any initiatives yet. However, the awareness to deal with urban construction logistics is growing. These are the conclusions of the latest SUCCESS-report on the experience and maturity of 12 European cities in construction logistics.
Industry is collaborating on a new programme designed to minimise the impact of the increasing amount of construction in London and to ultimately improve safety and air quality. The Construction Logistics programme, delivered in association with Transport for London and the Chartered Institute for Logistics and Transport, sees a broad range of industry involvement and …
Urban consolidation centres (UCCs) are a popular measure in city logistics. However, many UCCs strongly rely on government subsidies and are granted a short life because of their inability to reach financial sustainability. Despite the interest from both the practitioners and the research community, there are a limited number of quantitative contributions that investigate the …
Rapid urban growth has posed both challenges and opportunities for city planners, not in the least when it comes to the design of urban freight systems. But urbanization also fosters innovation and sharing, which have led to new models for organizing urban freight, e.g. crowd based logistics.
So far, city logistics has played a limited role in improving air quality in cities. The focus on clean vehicles has been positive for air quality. But shouldn’t we really be talking about economically sound, vital and healthy city centers and neighborhoods when developing urban freight policies? Today, “zero impact” city logistics should be the …
Home deliveries are the preferred method of delivery for consumers today. But, due to the specific, costly nature of home deliveries together with changes within society e.g. people working longer and more flexible hours and the competition between logistics providers, new more sustainable alternatives are being implemented. Automated parcel lockers being such an alternative.