Smart Urban Planning: Evaluating Urban Logistics Performance of Innovative Solutions and Sustainable Policies in the Venice Lagoon—the Results of a Case Study

Abstract

Currently, remarkable gaps of operational, social and environmental efficiency and overall sub-optimization of the logistics and mobility systems exist in urban areas. There is then the need to promote and assess innovative transport solutions and policy-making within SUMPs (Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans) to deal with such critical issues in order to improve urban sustainability. The paper focuses on the case study of the Venice Lagoon, where islands—despite representing a relevant feature of urban planning—face a tremendous lack of accessibility, depopulation, social cohesion and they turn out to be poorly connected. By developing an original scenario-building methodological framework and performing data collection activities, the purpose of the paper consists of assessing the feasibility of a mixed passenger and freight transport system —sometimes called cargo hitching. Mixed passenger and freight systems/cargo hitching are considered as an innovative framework based on the integration of freight and passenger urban systems and resources to optimize the existing transport capacity, and thus, urban sustainability. Results show that the overall existing urban transport capacity can accommodate urban freight flows on main connections in the Lagoon. The reduction in spare public transport capacity, as well as in the number (and type) of circulating freight boats show—in various scenarios—the degree of optimization of the resulting urban network configuration and the positive impacts on urban sustainability. This paves the way for the regulatory framework to adopt proposed solutions.

Research on Consumers’ Preferences for the Self-Service Mode of Express Cabinets in Stations Based on the Subway Distribution to Promote Sustainability

“…The combination of passengers and freight flows provides an opportunity to further promote the efficiency gains. Current sharing strategies for freight services are based on public transport modes such as subway [6,[18][19][20][21][23][24][25][26], bus [7][8][9]13,17,22,27,28], bus rapid transit [15,16], and trams [5,7,29]. By effectively using the surplus capacity of public transport vehicles, the distribution of a considerable part of the freight vehicles can be reduced, and the road traffic pressure and environmental pressure can be alleviated.…”

“…In general, the calibration of the parameters in the logit model is done by placing λ in V in . For the three choices of whether consumers are willing to pick up their parcels in the subway station, P in is defined here as the probability that the nth consumer chooses the ith choice, as shown in Equation (8).…”

“…The 'Chinese Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation in Transportation' proposed to develop intelligent and Recent studies have demonstrated the feasibility and efficiency of using public transportation such as subways, buses, and trams for express delivery. This mode of freight on transit can reduce some of the delivery work of freight vehicles, reduce pressure on road traffic, and reduce environmental pollution [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Van introduced a rural pilot project that was developed in the East of the Netherlands, and found that approximately 57.43 kg CO 2 emission was reduced per day if all the parcels towards Millingen aan de Rijn were delivered by cargo hitching [7].…”

“…CO 2 emissions could be decreased by up to 70% by reducing the number of vehicles [13]. In addition, it can make effective use of the carrying space of public transport vehicles, and can take advantage of its strong conveying capacity, fast operating speed, low transportation cost, and low environmental pollution [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. China encourages this mode of freight on transit.…”

The Application of the Latest Technologies for Smart City Construction in China

“…The benefits are numerous. It adds to the efficiency of the information, the efficiency of the people, logistics and the safety experience of cities [7,8]. The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Construction of the People's Republic of China initiated several national smart cities pilot projects in 2012 to explore a systematic approach towards developing, operating, managing and serving smart cities.…”