by Walther Ploos van Amstel
Cars, vans, trucks, and buses will have to be equipped with advanced safety features. Vulnerable road users, such as cyclists and pedestrians, to be better protected; 25.300 people died on EU roads in 2017 and 135.000 were seriously injured.
The public and private partners in the European project SOCRATES develop and test various smart traffic information and navigation services for road users, such as optimized navigation advice at major events and road works. The challenge is not only the technical realization of the services but also lies in the cooperation.
An experiment in smart city design is being proposed in Toronto. Sidewalk Labs (Google affiliate) is partnering with Waterfront Toronto to create a mixed-use community on a 12-acre site east of downtown with innovative concepts in local deliveries, waste collection and construction logistics.
Smog reduction could save European citizens €183 bn by 2025, InnoEnergy and Deloitte find. New research launched by InnoEnergy, Europe’s sustainable energy engine supported by the EIT, reveals that EU citizens are set to pocket €183 bn by adopting innovative smog-reduction technologies over the next seven years.
The past few months the cities of Copenhagen, Oslo, and Rotterdam were discussing potential zero-emission delivery options with regional suppliers in their selected priority areas within the Buyzet project. All three cities are exploring how they can encourage craftsmen employed to work in city-owned facilities to switch to zero-emission vehicles or find other ways to …
Exposure to environmental pollution is thought to cause as many as 9 million premature deaths each year. The largest health impacts are associated with air pollutants and particulate matter in particular. The latter is thought to cause an average reduction in life expectancy of 6 to 12 months in Europe.
Cities are taking measures to ensure that urban freight runs smoothly. These vary from stricter enforcement of illegal parking on loading and unloading zones and better route information for transporters (ITS) to optimization of delivery times windows. E-mobility will receive privileges in certain zones based on intelligent access.
Some logistics companies insist that deliveries will soon be done by drones. However, there’s a really old technology that’s more likely to be doing the bulk of the future’s last mile deliveries: the bicycle. “The delivery trike of old is now electric and capable of zipping 350 kg through congested city streets without touching the …
A new approach to cargo trams is under testing in Frankfurt/Main, in combination with e-cargo bikes. The tram brings containers (‘micro depots’) to various points in the city, where they are loaded on special e-bike trailers for further last mile distribution.
In the past months, pupils from schools in the Dutch city of Groningen formulated ideas for future urban logistics in cooperation with students of the University of Groningen. ‘Web Expeditie Groningen‘ is a collaboration among the University of Groningen (UG), Public Education Groningen, the municipality of Groningen, Cisco and the Logistics Top Sector.