Urban freight transport is expected to increase in volume and share of motorized traffic in cities. Simultaneously, stakeholders responsible for urban development lack access to detailed data on urban freight transport. Private freight actors, i.e., carriers, collect data as part of their operations, which could potentially meet the data needs within public planning. A recent paper explores the possibilities of exploiting such data for improved urban mobility planning through semi-structured interviews with carriers and planners.
The results show that carriers are willing to share delivery data under certain conditions and even mention benefits for their own operations if such sharing leads to more informed freight planning. Furthermore, sample data provided by carriers was explored and essentially proved to contain core information on carrier movements to meet the needs of the planners. However, data on vehicles and routing was lacking.
As a next step, the researchers suggest that a public authority initiate the collection and use of carrier-provided data to maintain trust amongst stakeholders. Additionally, efficient ways of collecting and interpreting the data must be developed to obtain consistent, useable, high-quality data for sustainable urban mobility planning.