Los límites de las políticas públicas en el ámbito de la logística urbana: el caso de la ciudad de Vicenza

Desde hace más de quince años, la logística urbana es un tema que suscita el interés de varias categorías de actores, sobre todo el de los políticos. Una de las acciones más frecuentes que esta categoría de actores lleva a cabo es la introducción de políticas de regulación. La reglamentación de la circulación urbana se caracteriza a menudo por una serie de restricciones y de límites de acceso a algunas zonas del centro de la ciudad. Esta comunicación intenta analizar los límites de estas restricciones para que no constituyan un abuso de autoridad. Para ello, presentamos el caso del municipio de Vicenza (Italia), que ha aplicado una reglamentación muy restrictiva, lo cual ha conllevado al primer caso, a nuestro entender, de jurisprudencia en la materia, como consecuencia a una demanda interpuesta por varias empresas de mensajería express. Por fin, intentaremos sacar unas enseñanzas de este caso para las otras ciudades europeas.Résumé - Cet article s'intéresse aux limites des actions des autorités territoriales en matière de logistique urbaine, non seulement dans la réglementation d'accès aux zones à trafic limité mais aussi dans la promotion ou l'imposition de nouvelles formes d'organisation sans qu'elles ne soient a posteriori sanctionnées pour abus de pouvoir. A partir du cas de la comune de Vicenza (Italie), qui a mis en place une réglementation très restrictive et a gagné en justice face à une association des principaux transporteurs européens, nous extrapolerons les résultats à d'autres villes, en commençant par la réaction en Italie, où villes comme Padoue utilisent le précédent juridique pour endurcir leurs réglementations ou imposer des changements. A partir du cas italien, des enseignement peuvent être appliqués à d'autres aires urbaines dans le sud-ouest de l'Europe

Urban freight consultations in the Paris region

This article describes recent freight consultations in the Paris region (called the Ile de France) and assesses their usefulness to the urban freight policy. The Ile de France is one of 22 French regions, and is one of the largest and most developed metropolitan areas in Europe. It is currently confronting major economic, environmental, and institutional challenges. In this changing context, freight and logistics activities have been acknowledged as major contributors to the region's economic well being that nonetheless have negative environmental effects such as noise, air pollution, and CO2 emissions. To manage freight transport in a more sustainable manner, the City of Paris and, more recently, the Ile-de-France Region, have engaged in consultations with freight transport firms, carriers' organizations, and shippers' associations. Method : Our method is based on personal knowledge and experience, on a quantitative analysis of meeting records, and on interviews with local practitioners and elected officials. We examine consultations at three levels in the Ile de France Region's institutional framework: the local level, represented by the 'neighbourhood councils' in the city of Paris's individual districts; the municipal level, with the Paris Delivery Charter experience (2006-2009); and the regional level, through the Ile-de-France Regional Council's recent experiences with freight consultation. Results and conclusion : We analyse the difficulties encountered when conducting negotiations with the freight and logistics sectors in a complex urban environment. We describe the relationships between local and regional processes, showing how they have benefited from and sometimes overlapped with one another. Conditions for success are suggested, and a few guidelines are proposed. The Paris case leads to three conclusions. First of all, with regard to freight issues, specific consultations need to be implemented, because regular consultationsneglect freight transport issues. Secondly, freight consultations are of little use at the local and municipal levels. They need to be combined with metropolitan or region-wide consultation, because freight movement in urban areas is logistically connected to regional and national supply chains. Finally, it is important that consultation outcomes translate into effective changes in policies and behaviours. If not, well-intentioned freight companies willing to improve their urban operations will be discouraged from doing so and the very purpose of freight consultations, which is to promote more efficient and sustainable urban supply chains based on voluntary commitments, will be lost

Logistics sprawl in monocentric and polycentric metropolitan areas: the cases of Paris, France, and the Randstad, the Netherlands

The phenomenon of urban sprawl has been studied extensively. Most research so far has focused on residential settlements. A growing number of studies have addressed industrial deconcentration. Our focus in this paper is on logistics sprawl, i.e. the growth and suburban relocation of warehousing activities. Specifically, we investigate the difference in logistics sprawl between monocentric and polycentric systems of cities. The literature suggests that logistics activities, like residential settlements, will gradually move to suburbs as land prices increase in central areas. As research for logistics has mostly focused on monocentric systems, the question is whether this also applies to polycentric systems. We compare two cases, the Paris region in France, representative of a monocentric development, and the Dutch Randstad area as a polycentric case. We use regional statistics on warehouse settlements in both regions for a descriptive analysis of changes since the mid 2000s to derive metrics for concentration. The cases show different patterns of change in concentration. In contrast to Paris, logistics activities within the Randstad have intensified in dense areas. We explore the reasons that may explain this difference and conclude that urban structure, spatial planning policies and the freight hub quality of a region are factors of influence.

Decarbonising Urban Freight Transport: Experimentations in European Research Projects

One of the objectives of European research programs is to decarbonize freight transport while maintaining its competitiveness and economic strength, reduce negative externalities such as pollutant emissions, congestion and accidents, and foster innovation. Multiple initiatives have started in Europe to reach these objectives and this paper reviews some of these schemes in the field of urban freight transport. It is based mainly on 3 EC-funded projects (BESTFACT (2016), SOLUTION (2015) and SMARTFUSION (2016)). These 3 projects are either testing (Smartfusion) or examining and disseminating European ‘new solutions’ or ‘best practices’ in freight transport. The paper mainly focuses on the most decarbonizing solutions

Port cities and urban logistics

Cities and metropolitan areas serve a wide variety of functions. Those cities which have a port function may be subject to significant increases in traffic flows. Thus in recent years port activities have at times been viewed as a problem by those responsible for traffic planning in the city with which the port is connected. This paper considers the port-city interactions over time and highlights how these have changed. A new phase of these interactions may be at hand with significant implications for urban freight movements. Ports’ strategies are constantly evolving and port managers seek to make better use of the port’s assets. One of the main assets is land and here there are some emerging trends that have important implications for the port-city interface. In addition, city authorities are increasingly looking for opportunities to use non-road modes for some of the movements of goods to, from and possibly within their cities. Cities that are connected to a port have some interesting opportunities in this area. These developments imply a new period of more intense port-city interaction

A new urban freight distribution scheme and an optimization methodology for reducing its overall cost

The paper refers to an innovative urban freight distribution scheme, aimed at reducing the externalities connected with the freight delivery process. Both packages destined to commercial activities and to end consumers (e-commerce) are taken into account. Each package is characterized by an address and dimensions. In the proposed transport system, freight is firstly delivered to the UDC on the border of urban areas through trucks or trains which perform the long distance transport. After, freight is reorganized and consolidated into load units, i.e. the FURBOT boxes, according to packages dimensions and to the addresses of receivers. Each box is addressed to a temporary unloading bay and it is delivered there by a FURBOT vehicle. The receivers are in charge of collecting their packages in the related unloading bays where they have been delivered. The paper concerns a methodology for optimizing this freight transport system's performances. The overall methodology receives in input the actual freight demand and the road network, and finds the transport system parameters (number of required FURBOT boxes, their temporary unloading bay, the FURBOT fleet dimension and the FURBOT vehicle routing) that minimize the system overall cost. The overall cost is a sum of the users' cost, which depends on the distance they have to walk for collecting their packages in the FURBOT box, and of the operator's cost, which depends on the number of required boxes, the total distance travelled by the FURBOT vehicles and the required number of FURBOT vehicles. The overall procedure has been applied to the case study of Barreiro old town, a suburb of Lisbon, Portugal

A GPS analysis for urban freight distribution

Daily life in urban centers has led to increasing and more demanding freight requirements. Manufacturers, retailers and other urban agents have thus tended towards more frequent and smaller deliveries, resulting in a growing use of light freight vehicles (<3.5 ton). This paper characterizes and analyzes urban freight distribution in order to generate new ways of understanding the phenomenon. Based on a case study of two different-sized Spanish cities using data from GPS, a vehicle observation survey and complementary driver's interviews, the authors propose a categorization of urban freight distribution. The results confirm GPS as a useful tool that allows the integration of dynamic traffic assignment data and diverse traffic operation patterns during different day periods, thereby improving delivery performance

SUGAR. Sustainable Urban Goods Logistics Achieved by Regional and Local Policies. City Logistics Best Practices: a Handbook for Authorities

This publication is one of the main results of the SUGAR project and it is focused on the Best Practices analysis, a tool for the involvement of the community of experts in the emerging field of city logistics. The handbook proposes a quick overview on the project, a detailed collection of best practice synthesis, a synthesis of transferrability issues of such practices and the methodology for applying some of them to different cities and fields

Urban logistics by rail and waterways in France and Japan

This article aims to identify some commonalities and differences in intermodal freight in France and Japan, focusing on urban zones. This comparison puts into perspective two spatial situations linked with land pressure. It helps us identify opportunities for knowledge transfer of best practices for the promotion of modal shift and for land use and planning policies that favor intermodal freight. Research works have been carried out on intermodal logistic policies at national scales. However, in urban areas, the use of intermodal services has specific characteristics. Intermodal services are difficult to implement for last mile deliveries, as waterways and railways are used for high volume flows. Nevertheless, during the last decade, an increasing number of projects including intermodal services for the “mile before last” have been set up. Document type: Conference objec