The sustainable development of the European logistics industry: an analytic approach at micro and macroeconomic levels

A large re-structuring process is running in the European logistics market. The main driving forces come from the globalisation of the Economy, encouraged by the decrease of the unit transportation costs and by the contemporaneous upgrading of the labour level costs and the legal environmental costs. So, a good logistics system has become a must for the competition at both micro and macro-economic levels. Given the effectiveness of the single deliveries of goods, the main problem is to increase efficiency of the logistics services. From the micro-economic point of view, the problem consists in minimising the costs of the production processes of goods management services. In Europe, in particular, we are watching a large re-organisation of the logistics enterprises and of their territorial networks to achieve the best scale and scope economies of production. At the macroeconomic level, the problem is to estimate the rate of the logistics services on the GDP. In this paper we investigate the European logistics market transformations both from microeconomics and macroeconomics points of view. Thus, we will analyse the investments of the logistics sector as well as the logistics supply value as a component of GDP and its contribution to the International balance of commerce. Moreover, the infrastructures system quality (railways, roads, telecommunication, ports, airports, etc.) will be considered as a base asset for the reduction of the private costs of service production and as a territorial resource for the sustainable vehicles circulation.

The indirect effects of manufacturing internationalization on logistics - Evidence from the Italian districts

The aim of the paper is to investigate the indirect impact of internationalisation process, undertaken by the district firms located in Veneto region (north-eastern Italy), on the logistics’ employment change within the same industrial districts. The results of the empirical analysis have showed that within the districts there is not a clear positive relationship between internationalisation and the employment growth in the logistics sector. This might be due, either to a strong insourcing of logistics activities by district firms, or to a trend of outsourcing such activities to logistics suppliers located outside the industrial districts. The paper is organised into five sections. An introduction is followed by a literary review on the direct and indirect effects of manufacturing internationalisation on the home country, with a specific focus on logistics. The sample and the methodology are described in section three, section four presents the empirical results. Conclusions and further research questions follow.internationalisation, industrial districts, logistics sector, indirect effects.

Shared passengers & goods urban transport solutions and public transport operators: Which challenges? The case of Milan through an international comparison

Nowadays, in a sustainable urban development point of view, cities are looking for instruments and policies to ensure an efficient and effective urban mobility for both passengers and goods. Indeed, optimizing passengers and goods flows in the urban area while reducing the externalities linked to direct mobility's improvements, become more and more stressing. Goods transport, long excluded from the city's problems, seems now attract renewed interest both from the traditional players such as institutional or professionals of road transport, but also from the new players such as operators of public transport. Some operators are wondering whether or not to enter further into this issue: design and manage combined urban transport solutions, which allow a smooth sharing of passengers and goods could be a real opportunity to extend their services. Unfortunately, not much is known concerning how these innovative solutions can be integrated into companies' strategy, and examples of involvement of public transport operators in urban goods transport and urban logistics are still few. The aim of this paper is to explore this issue. At first, the concept of combined passengers/goods urban transport is defined and existing solutions are described, carried out on an international survey. Than, experiences of European operators involved in combined passengers/goods urban transport solutions are analysed. From this framework, the paper discusses the conditions and economic factors that may make such solutions an interesting alternative to traditional urban transport services' production. In a last section, some scenarios will be proposed, based on Milan's urban transport system

Uno scenario logistico europeo in forte evoluzione

none1F. BoscacciBoscacci, Flavi

La riorganizzazione dei flussi delle merci nella regione metropolitana milanese

Nel panorama metropolitano milanese da tempo è in atto una tendenza alla rilocalizzazione delle basi logistiche dovuto, da un lato, alla ricerca di maggiore efficienza operativa da parte delle imprese, dall'altro, alla migliorata possibilità previsionale - riduzione dell'incertezza - circa il futuro del sistema regionale della mobilità, se non proprio di certezze realizzative

Valutazioni tecniche ed economiche delle infrastrutture di trasporto

I servizi che arricchiscono il funzionamento del sistema economico e sociale di un territorio traggono a loro volta efficienza e qualitŕ dall'esistenza di specifiche reti infrastrutturali, di norma interconnesse a livello internazionale e spesso al servizio l'una delle altre. Delle innumerevoli questioni - tecnologiche, tecniche, gestionali - che riguardano lo sviluppo delle reti si esamina qui l'aspetto delle valutazioni tecniche ed economiche delle infrastrutture di trasporto. Ciň perché i territori necessitano di sempre maggiore accessibilitŕ per le persone e per le merci, ma anche perché spesso le infrastrutture esistenti non sono adeguatamente sfruttate e una loro duplicazione č in genere assai costosa, in termini economici e ambientali. Dopo un sintetico richiamo alle categorie teoriche piů importanti per giudicare il ruolo delle reti infrastrutturali nell'economia di un territorio, il saggio introduttivo presenta i sette contributi esperti, organizzandoli secondo la loro natura scientifica e la finalitŕ valutativa.</jats:p

The sustainable development of the european logistics industry: An analytic approach at micro and macro-economic levels

none1F. BoscacciBoscacci, Flavi

Scenari localizzativi logistico produttivi

reserved2I mutamenti dell'economia e il crescente grado di competizione tra produttori hanno determinato l'espulsione delle attività manifatturiere e della logistica pesante dagli ambiti urbani. Le attività manifatturiere hanno assunto un indirizzo localizzativo sempre più "foot loose" su vasta scala territoriale, alla ricerca del miglior presidio dei mercati di sbocco dei prodotti, nonchè delle convenienze comparate nell'impiego dei fattori della produzione. A loro volta, le strutture logistiche tendono a rezionalizzare la propria presenza sul territorio alla ricerca di più elevate economie di concentrazione e di accessibilità.F. Boscacci; D. LuccaBoscacci, Flavio; Lucca, David