ULaaDS: Urban Logistics as an on-Demand Service

Last week the EU project ULaaDS (Urban Logistics as an on-Demand Service) was launched. ULaaDS brings together 24 partners, including city authorities, research institutions, industry and logistics stakeholders, associations, and networks to support the deployment of innovative, feasible, shared, and zero-emission solutions across a three-year period.

The project offers an approach to system innovation in urban logistics. Through the relocalization of logistics activities and the reconfiguration of urban freight flows at different scales, the project aims to develop sustainable and liveable cities, allowing people and local businesses to easily use alternative modes of shopping and delivery.

To realize this vision, ULaaDS will create five new urban logistics business models and schemes, these being the containerized last-mile, a marketplace for city logistics, a city-wide urban freight transport platform, and location, infrastructure, and vehicle capacity sharing. These will be tested in three lighthouse pilot cities of Bremen (Germany), Mechelen (Belgium), and Groningen (the Netherlands), alongside four satellite cities of Alba Iulia (Romania), Bergen (Norway), Edinburgh (UK), and Rome (Italy). ULaaDS will then assess their social, environmental, and economic impact and translate the findings into open decision support tools and guidelines that other urban areas can adopt to identify, explore and assess different sets of intervention measures to deal with the requirements of urban logistics.

Together with LEAD, the project is one of two new projects under the CIVITAS Initiative dealing with urban freight

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