Sustainability of Urban Freight Transport: Retail Distribution and Local Regulations in Cities

Although our urbanized civilization requires freight transport in order to sustain it, urban freight transport is especially recognized for its unsustainable impacts. To reduce the unsustainable impacts of urban freight transport, many local governments develop policies that focus sometimes more on banning or restricting urban transport than on making it more sustainable. In the first part of this thesis we develop a framework to structure the urban freight transport field and to review urban fraight transport sustainability initiatives. The number of initiatives that is succesfully implemented in practice turns out te be quite low. In the review and the following analysis, we try to find the barriers for succesful implementation of the initiatives in practice. In the seond part we examine the impacts of the most commonly used local sustainability policies. Six time-window scenarios and their impacts on the economical, environmental and social sustainability are examined based on a multiple case study. Time-window regulations increase both the environmental and distribution costs. Retail chains are affected differently by time-window pressure and vehicle restrictions due to differences in their logical concept. based on an experiment we examine the effects of retailers' logical decisions in combination with local sustainability policies. Next, we examine the degree to which retailers are able te deal with problems caused by time-windows. Combining the primary and secondary distribution, i.e. factory gate pricing, results in more sustainable distribution operations for the retailer and in less sensivity towards time-window regulations

Exploring retailers' sensitivity to local sustainability policies

Local governments in Western Europe increasingly use city time-access regulations to improve social sustainibility. These regulations significantly influence the distribution process of retail chain organizations. This paper studies the impact of governmental timewindow pressure on retailers’ logistical concept and consequential financial and environmental distribution performance. We determine which dimensions in the retailer’s logistical concept determine its cost and emission sensitivity to increasing time-win

The impacts of time access restrictions and vehicle weight restrictions on food retailers and the environment

Urban freight transport has many sustainable aspects. It contributes to economic vitality and the competitiveness of a region. However, the less socially and environmentally friendly effects such as noise, pollutant emissions, and nuisance, are usually the central theme in designing urban freight transport policies. Restricting policies as time access restrictions and vehicle restrictions gain popularity among Dutch local authorities. More than half of the municipalities uses time access restrictions. In spite of the popularity of these policy measures, the effects on the distribution of retailers, the environment and the transport costs are not known yet. In this paper we present three case studies of food retailers, in order to examine the effects of time access restrictions and vehicle weight restrictions. We discuss the impacts on the transport costs and the distribution processes (on the retailer’s side) and the environmental impacts. To find these effects we design five scenarios, in which we vary the length of time access restrictions, the allowed weight of the weight restriction and the number of cities in which these regulations are used. In these scenarios we adapt, based on the likely reaction of the involved food retailers, the distribution activities to fit the regulations. The results show that the vehicle weight restriction as well as the time access restrictions have a negat

Urban Distribution: The Impacts of Different Governmental Time-Window Schemes

Local authorities increasingly use time-access regulations to improve social sustainability issues, such as the attractiveness of a city centre, the shopping climate, or to reduce the nuisance caused by urban freight transport. However, these time-windows increase delivery costs and the environmental burden. This paper evaluates five different time-window schemes on their social, environmental, and economic impacts. The first scheme examines the current time-window policy scheme.