Developing a Multi‐Dimensional Poly‐Parametric Typology for City Logistics

Abstract

This research explored the extent to which urban freight policies and measures/ interventions, can be determined via the city logistics typologies and objectives studies developed from past work, comprehensively reviewing almost all European city logistics cases from the 1970s to the current day. Using EU, national, local and private sources, we collected over 260 cases from 60+ projects involving 121 cities. We reviewed urban freight typologies, based on land use, type of transport policies/measures, urban freight markets and traffic flows, city logistics problem/objectives, and other attributes, integrating cases with typologies, and validating our analysis through a panel of city logistics experts. This has created a new, comprehensive inventory that is modular and extensible. From this, and literature review, we have developed a novel, multi-dimensional, poly parametric typology for city logistics, that has multiple uses in analysing and selecting interventions.To INDEX a comprehensive inventory of city logistics interventions in a coherent, standardised, and modular manner, cross linking that typology to the impacts, validated by an expert panel, for use by the authors and, as importantly, by the wider city logistics research community for further inductive research. Secondly, to analyse and construct a city logistics typology as a methodological and theoretical tool for deductive work in the future, within the tradition of systems thinking and other research methods. LITERATURE REVIEWEfforts to define a city typology for city logistics is not new; a number of previous studies have been reported in the proceedings of the international conference of city logistics, e.g. (Quak et al. 2008;Benjelloun et al. 2010). Another study used previous city logistics projects to create a framework of components and criteria to define a so-called 'taxonomy', embedding five key components: description, business model, functionality, scope, and technology, to classify them (Benjelloun et al. 2010). In each of these components, several sub-level criteria were defined and, below that, a further sub-level of items, to characterise the reviewed projects. The taxonomy study demonstrated a comprehensive list of city logistics project characteristics.Other efforts to employ typology studies focused on types of city logistics measures used. A 'what if' (or 'ex-ante assessment') framework (Russo & Comi 2016) defined city logistics measures into four types: material infrastructure (e.g. new building, such as urban consolidation centres); non-material infrastructure (e.g. ITS, traffic monitoring); equipment (e.g. loading standards); and governance (e.g. time windows). Another study reviewed EU funded projects to assess their impacts on sustainability dimensions (economy, environment, society and (transport) customer service), showing that city logistics measures can be typified into five clusters: regulatory; cooperative; infrastructure development; new business models; and technological (Papoutsis & Nathanail 2016). The 4 A's approach...

Reverse Logistics and Urban Logistics: Making a Link

“…Certainly, other key issues of UL, such as land use, city typology, infrastructures, and stakeholder engagement should be further analyzed in order to keep advancing in the description of links between both RL and UL. Actually, land use and city characteristics significantly influence the performance of urban freight [70], which can be utilized in the decision-making process for waste management [91]. For example, regarding public infrastructures, some examples can be mentioned such as the development and promotion of urban consolidation centers, and the use of alternative transport modes like tram and underground for freight transport and waste management [92,93].…”

“…Land use management is also a relevant topic in UL with potential extensions to RL in issues such as the use of mini-warehouses or parcel lockers for commercial returns. A tricky situation on this regard may be the difficulty to generalize such solutions to any city, because the relevance of these impacts varies per city area and the associated scale, with differences between large conurbations and small-or medium-sized cities [70].…”

The Tendency of Urban Stakeholders to Adopt Sustainable Logistics Measures on the Example of a Polish Metropolis

“…As Aditjandra and Zunder note when developing a 'multi-dimensional poly parametric typology' for city logistics 'one of the major problems in selecting urban freight transport (urban freight) solutions for future implementation, is choosing-from many available options-those that meet the needs of a given city (via key urban freight stakeholder demand), that are compatible with the agreed stakeholder goals'. Research efforts that are meant to engage urban freight stakeholders lead to a better understanding of the needs of quality partnerships and as a consequence more effective engagement [5].…”

“…The platform enables to aggregate the stakeholders of transport system and to manage the supply chain in real-time [4]. A detailed review of European projects on city logistics has been prepared by Aditjandra and Zunder [5].Although comparing the projects at some level is possible [6,7], it is difficult to assess these projects in terms of effects, because each city has different characteristics and conditions of implementation. Additionally, each project tackles a different aspect and offers a different approach.…”

“…The platform enables to aggregate the stakeholders of transport system and to manage the supply chain in real-time [4]. A detailed review of European projects on city logistics has been prepared by Aditjandra and Zunder [5].…”