by Walther Ploos van Amstel
Space is the most contested resource in the modern city. Residential buildings, shops, cycling infrastructure, public green space. They all compete for the same finite stock of urban land. Logistics, which keeps it all functioning, has historically lost that competition and been pushed to the periphery. But a growing body of practice across European cities …
Cities are under pressure. More parcels, more delivery vans, less space, tighter climate targets — and a tangle of local regulations that makes collaboration harder than it needs to be. In Urban Logistics Transformation, editors Ani Melkonyan-Gottschalk (TU Clausthal) and Yanying Li (ALICE) bring together a broad group of European researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to …
For decades, package visibility has depended on a driver remembering to scan. UPS wants to change that — and its rollout of RFID sensing across the entire U.S. small-package network is the most concrete step any major carrier has taken to make that happen. As of this week, every UPS delivery vehicle in the country …
For city logistics professionals, the question of where to focus last-mile investment has long been complicated by conflicting evidence. Do urban consumers drive demand for home delivery, or do rural consumers, who have less access to physical stores, rely on it more? A new study tracking US consumer behavior from 2010 to 2023 provides the …
City authorities across Europe are under growing pressure to make urban logistics more sustainable. Zero-emission zones, last-mile delivery regulations, and climate targets are multiplying. Yet despite this political momentum, most cities continue to handle logistics in a fragmented, reactive way. Why is progress so slow? A new study from the Norwegian Center for Transport Research …
Imagine a city where delivery trucks no longer clog your streets, where parcels, retail goods, and logistics freight glide silently through underground corridors, arriving on time, every time, without a single exhaust pipe in sight. It sounds futuristic, but a new review published in Smart Cities (2026) suggests this vision is closer to reality than …
Here’s a roundup of the most relevant city logistics news from last week and the past few weeks: Urban Consolidation Centers: No Silver Bullet A recent analysis by the Dutch Kennisinstituut voor Mobiliteitsbeleid (KiM), published on 21 March, provides a systematic review of urban consolidation centers (city hubs) and reaches a key conclusion: their effectiveness …
As e-commerce continues to reshape urban life, city streets are under growing pressure. Every online order ends with a delivery truck searching for somewhere to stop. A new study published in Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives offers a rare look at that moment from the driver’s seat. Researchers from Oregon State University and the University of …
London has a congestion problem, a pollution problem, and an illegal e-bike problem. A newly launched coalition thinks a shared network of urban microhubs can tackle all three at once. The Urban Microhub Alliance (UMA) officially kicked off in London this week, uniting e-mobility operator Port with delivery firms and parking operators including Deliveroo, Apcoa, …
Summary of: Kokkinou, A., Quak, H. & Mitas, O. (2026). “Leveraging fairness to nudge consumers towards more sustainable last mile delivery options.” Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 37, 101956. Every time a consumer clicks “next-day delivery,” they make a choice with real urban consequences; more vans, more congestion, more emissions. Getting consumers to voluntarily choose slower, …