For many years, Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) focused primarily on moving people. Walking, cycling, public transport, and private cars dominated the discussion, while urban freight was often reduced to a few pages on deliveries or low-emission zones. The third edition of the Guidelines for Developing and Implementing a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan marks a significant shift. City logistics is no longer treated as an afterthought—it has become an integral part of sustainable urban mobility planning.
| A SUMP is the strategic tool cities use to plan mobility comprehensively: public transport, walking and cycling, land-use and transport integration, and more. Yet often, urban logistics (freight and goods transport) is treated separately or underrepresented in mobility planning. This is problematic because freight and goods transport significantly shape traffic flows, congestion, emissions, and public-space use, just like passenger transport. Ignoring urban logistics in mobility planning risks undermining sustainability, air quality, and liveability goals. Planning only for passenger mobility while neglecting freight can lead to contradictory outcomes (for instance, implementing pedestrian areas or Low Emission Zones but failing to account for goods delivery to businesses, shops and households in those areas). |
This change reflects reality. Cities cannot function without efficient logistics. Every day, retailers, restaurants, hospitals, construction sites and households depend on reliable freight transport. The new Guidelines explicitly recognize that cities must meet the mobility needs of both people and businesses, placing urban freight alongside passenger mobility as a core planning objective.
Perhaps the most important innovation is that the integration of passenger mobility and urban freight transport has become one of the eight guiding principles of the SUMP framework. Rather than treating freight as a separate policy domain, cities are encouraged to integrate logistics flows, last-mile deliveries and even long-distance freight into their overall mobility strategies. This represents a fundamental shift from traditional transport planning towards genuinely integrated urban mobility management.
The Guidelines also place a strong emphasis on zero-emission urban logistics. However, the document wisely recognizes that cleaner vehicles alone are not enough. Cities are encouraged to improve the efficiency of urban freight through better use of loading and unloading space, freight consolidation, urban micro-hubs, higher vehicle load factors and fewer empty trips. Combined with low- and zero-emission delivery vehicles, these measures are expected to reduce congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and noise while maintaining reliable urban deliveries.
Another welcome development is the recognition that city logistics extends beyond the city centre. The Guidelines encourage planners to consider freight flows across the entire functional urban area, including links with peri-urban regions, ports, inland waterways and the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). For the 431 designated TEN-T urban nodes, sustainable and zero-emission urban logistics is now a mandatory element of future SUMPs. This acknowledges that urban freight is part of a much larger logistics network connecting cities to national and international supply chains.
Despite these advances, the Guidelines remain largely strategic rather than operational. They explain convincingly why cities should integrate logistics into mobility planning but offer less guidance on how to do so. Topics such as governance of urban consolidation centers, digital curb management, freight data sharing, carrier collaboration, delivery booking systems and innovative logistics business models receive relatively little attention. These are precisely the issues that determine whether city logistics policies succeed in practice.
Nevertheless, the overall direction is unmistakable. The European Commission now recognizes that liveable, accessible and climate-neutral cities cannot be achieved without efficient urban logistics. Freight is no longer viewed simply as a source of congestion and emissions but as an essential urban service that must be planned alongside passenger mobility.
For city logistics professionals, researchers and policymakers, this represents an important milestone. After years of sitting on the margins of urban mobility policy, city logistics has finally earned its place at the heart of Europe’s sustainable mobility agenda.
Walther Ploos van Amstel.