The receiver is the forgotten director of urban logistics. But what do we actually know about the receiver?
Last week I wrote about stricter restrictions on heavy freight traffic in city centres. From the perspective of vulnerable quay walls and urban liveability, these measures are understandable. Yet in cities such as Utrecht and Amsterdam, they may have disruptive consequences for the leisure sector.
Research by the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences shows that a typical leisure venue receives more than twelve suppliers per week. Wholesalers such as Sligro and Bidfood operate with high load factors and deliver within tight time windows, often including key services and temperature-controlled logistics. In other words, a significant share of leisure-related volumes is already efficiently consolidated by professional wholesalers.
If policymakers exclude heavy, efficient vehicles from city centres, they risk generating more small vehicles, more stops, and higher supply chain costs. Transport currently represents around 1–2% of turnover for leisure entrepreneurs. In a sector where margins are often only a few percentage points, even a small increase in logistics costs can determine profitability.
The debate on urban logistics almost always revolves around vehicles, zero-emission zones, and urban consolidation centres. Yet structurally, we are looking at the wrong end of the chain.
A transport movement does not originate with the carrier; it originates with the receiver. Order frequency, order size, preferred delivery windows, and return agreements determine the number of trips and the types of vehicles deployed. Without demand-side interventions, last-mile optimisations remain marginal.
In sectors such as leisure, construction, retail, and offices, ordering behaviour is often fragmented: small orders, ad hoc requests, and little coordination with neighbouring businesses. The result is dozens of separate deliveries per day to locations that are hardly designed for logistics. More stops, longer waiting times, higher emissions. Anyone who wants fewer trips must address ordering behaviour and stimulate cooperation between receivers.
If we are serious about reforming urban logistics, we must place the receiver’s Decision Making Unit (DMU) at the centre of analysis. Within each organisation, users, influencers, gatekeepers, and decision-makers operate under distinct KPIs: the F&B manager prioritises freshness and flexibility, the owner focuses on margin and risk, and the purchaser seeks reliability and price stability. Without understanding these internal dynamics, no effective supply strategy can be designed.
Professional procurement managers often structure their decisions using the Kraljic matrix: purchase value versus supply risk. For urban logistics, a third dimension should be added: the share of supply costs in total operating costs.
Consider a beverage served in a bar: only a few cents reflect transport costs. If the consumer pays five euros, logistics rarely becomes a board-level concern. In construction materials, by contrast, logistics accounts for a much larger share of costs. That difference explains why contractors are more inclined to organise logistics collectively.
Future-proof urban logistics, therefore, requires steering on demand, not only on vehicles and infrastructure. Electrification is necessary but insufficient. Without professionalising ordering behaviour and aligning internal incentives within receiving organisations, urban logistics innovation risks remaining a policy abstraction.
The city is not clogged by freight vehicles. It is clogged by fragmented demand.
Walther Ploos van Amstel.