by Walther Ploos van Amstel
An Urban Consolidation Centre (UCC) can decrease the number of freight vehicles and their mileage in urban areas. In practice, however, UCCs often rely on subsidies and seldom make it past their starting period. Understanding how UCCs affect urban freight transport is mostly based on mathematical models and on the opinions of stakeholders who do …
Passenger and logistics transport challenges are approached as two different ecosystems despite the scarce space in cities. Therefore, policymakers called upon to tackle negative transport externalities face spatial challenges. However, despite a history in which both ecosystems have already been combined and the emphasis in the (limited) existing studies on how promising the combination can …
Urban freight distribution has confronted several challenges, including adverse environmental, social, and economic impacts. Many city logistics initiatives that use the concept of Urban Consolidation Centers (UCCs) have failed. The failure of many UCCs does not mean that the idea of additional terminals or microhubs should be rejected. There is limited knowledge about the advantages …
Today, a cursing and ranting engineer was again in our street with his diesel bus. Nowhere to be found for loading and unloading, the house where he needed to do his job was in a car-free area, and when he finally found a parking space, he had to pay 6 euros per hour. A fellow …
Logistics is crucial for a liveable city but should not lead to excessive cars and emissions. Hubs for (de)clustering goods at the neighbourhood level may provide a solution. However, what is the added value of such sites if logistical, economic and social functions are combined? The Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS) explores these questions …
Susanne Balm, Project Leader, Sustainable Logistics at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, presents the results of a research survey into what technical operators expect from a hub for service logistics.
First/last/only-mile options in urban freight transport can significantly reduce the environment and health burden of the transport of urban goods. This is very relevant as the effects of traffic noise, air pollution and congestion are most acute in cities. A new EEA report looks at first/last/only-mile options in urban mobility from both passenger and freight …
Despite more than 25 years of research in city logistics, it seems impossible to keep the growing number of, often half-empty, trucks out of our cities. City logistics problems seem unsolvable. Many initiatives fail, other initiatives only survive with subsidies or get caught in bureaucratic systems. But they don’t result in fewer trucks and vans. …