by Walther Ploos van Amstel
Ten years ago, I gave up my car. It was the best decision I ever made. Public transport, taxis, walking, cycling. In a small city like Amsterdam, you can go a long way without owning a vehicle. I rent a car only when absolutely necessary, four to six times a year. Often it is inconvenient, …
A comparative routing-based analysis shows that battery electric vehicles are most efficient for short and medium urban routes, while hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are better suited for longer inter-urban missions. Decoupled logistics models using micro-hubs and cargo bikes reduce curbside occupation by up to 80%, significantly improving public-space efficiency. Sustainable urban freight transitions require combining …
Europe is pushing hard for a sustainable, smart, and inclusive transport system. The logic is straightforward: if we want cleaner cities, resilient supply chains, and competitive logistics, we need better coordination across modes, across borders, and across public–private boundaries. Digitalisation is the lever, and data spaces are becoming the infrastructure behind it. Step 1 — …
Urban freight transport is under increasing pressure. Rapid urbanization, the growth of e-commerce, and stricter climate targets are forcing cities to rethink how last-mile logistics (LML) is organized. Against this backdrop, Sobrino et al. (2026) propose a novel sustainability impact assessment framework and apply it to an Urban Consolidation Center (UCC) in Madrid’s city center. …
Cargo bikes and light electric vehicles (LEVs) are widely promoted as sustainable alternatives for commercial transport. Yet despite supportive policies, technological improvements, and rising environmental pressure, adoption remains limited. The core barrier is not purely technical or economic. It is organizational. A recent study by researchers at the German Aerospace Center introduces a 12-month long-term …
Scope 3 emissions are indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across a company’s value chain and typically account for the largest share of corporate carbon footprints. Yet they remain the least consistently reported. In their recent longitudinal study, Bauer et al. (2026) examine how Scope 3 reporting has developed among 469 global logistics companies between 2020 …
With the launch of JoyExpress, the European e-commerce logistics market gets a new serious contender. Backed by JINGDONG Logistics, the logistics arm of JD.com, the company promises same-day and next-day delivery in major cities, integrated installation for large appliances, cold-chain capabilities, and a fully branded last-mile. JoyExpress will initially support Joybuy, JD.com’s new European online …
In 2025, Dutch PostNL continued its strategic transformation from a traditional postal and parcel operator into a digitally driven, data-powered logistics platform. Innovation focused on modernising the digital ecosystem, embedding AI into daily operations, strengthening cybersecurity, and improving customer experience across the entire delivery journey. At the customer interface, the PostNL app became the central …
The article “Modeling the dynamics of freight transport decarbonization: A review and research agenda” (Tavasszy et al., 2026) examines how existing freight transport models largely fail to address the dynamic processes required to achieve climate neutrality. The core question is not whether decarbonization is technically possible, but how long it will take and how reliably …
In his 2026 opinion article in Frontiers in Sustainability, Gilles A. Pache challenges the dominant narrative that e-commerce is inherently less sustainable than brick-and-mortar retail. He argues that environmental performance depends far more on logistics system design than on the retail channel itself. The key determinants are consolidation intensity, routing optimization, fleet composition, demand stability, …