Identification of the regional and economic contexts of sustainable urban logistics policies

Urban logistics policies have become instrumental in achieving sustainable transport systems. Developing and emerging countries still lag far behind in the implementation of such policies when compared with developed countries. This exposure gap provides an opportunity for policy transfer, but this is a complex process requiring knowledge of many contextual factors and involving multiple steps. A good understanding of those contextual factors of measures by cities may be critical for a successful transfer. Our study aimed to identify the different contexts of urban logistics measures or policies worldwide and to assess their significance for policy transferability. In this study, urban logistics measures discussed in the literature were retrieved with a systematic literature review method and then the contexts were recorded, distinguishing between economic development levels and geographical regions. The analysis revealed that the economic level and geographical location of cities both have a strong association with the type of measure implemented. Barriers and drivers were identified by assessing policy transfer between developed and developing countries. Institutional and physical barriers appeared to be highly pertinent for a range of measures, while drivers or facilitators were identified from specific problems in developing countries and the respective measures in developed countries. Thus, the analysis of contextual factors can provide a first response to the key challenges and opportunities of sustainable urban logistics policies transfer to developing countries

Modelling the effect of spatial determinants on freight (trip) attraction: A spatially autoregressive geographically weighted regression approach

This paper investigates the effect of spatial and locational characteristics of establishments on freight (trip) attraction (FA/FTA) models. The authors estimated econometric models of FA and FTA as a function of the establishment attributes as well as the spatial and locational determinant variables, using establishment-level data collected from Addis Ababa City, Ethiopia. The interconnected issues of spatial dependency and spatial heterogeneity, together with nonlinear specifications, were incorporated with the application of spatial techniques, including spatial error models (SEM), spatial autoregressive model (SAR), geographically weighted regression (GWR), multiscale-GWR (MGWR), and the combination GWR-SAR/MGWR-SAR. Regarding the explanatory variables, the empirical results revealed that firms in the manufacturing, wholesale and retail sectors located on the wider streets tend to receive more FA and FTA. The closeness to the primary road network and the city entry gate influences the FTA of manufacturing and construction firms. Moreover, retail establishments near the major market tend to receive more tonnage. The models also confirm that FA and FTA are the results of two different processes. Overall, the use of spatial regression techniques improves the accuracy of both FA and FTA models. MGWR-SAR exhibits superior performance by jointly addressing spatial dependency and heterogeneity. The MGWR-SAR model also uncovers the local variability of the variables representing the spatial and locational effects on freight attraction. The methodological analysis and empirical findings of the study could provide useful insights to support urban freight modelling, planning, and decision-making

Temporal stability of shipment size decisions related to choice of truck type

The choice of shipment size is a vital decision in logistics and has a strong indirect influence on freight transport demand, via the choice of mode and truck type choice. Through time, shipment sizes can change as a result of new decisions in the logistics process or due to conditions external to the supply chain. This study investigates the temporal stability of shipment size choices, relating these to the choice of truck types. It uses repeated cross-sectional data for the years 2015, 2017, and 2019 collected from cordon and business establishment surveys in Addis Ababa city, Ethiopia. The integrated choice and latent variables (ICLV) and latent growth (LG) models were used to assess the time-dependent patterns of choosing shipment sizes, both at the level of the entire freight system as well as the specific truck types. The model results reveal that shipment size decisions are temporally unstable where, in our case, shipment sizes exhibited a declining trend

Inrichten distributienetwerk? Hou rekening met deze factoren

Logistieke kosten, service levels en beschikbaarheid van personeel zijn al jaren belangrijke uitgangspunten op basis waarvan bedrijven hun fysieke distributienetwerken inrichten. Toch zijn er zes minder bekende factoren waar bedrijven rekening mee houden bij het ontwerp van hun distributienetwerken

Framework for Modelling Multi-stakeholder City Logistics Domain Using the Agent based Modelling Approach

Efficiency of city logistics activities suffers due to conflicting personal preferences and distributed decision making by multiple city logistics stakeholders. This is exacerbated by interdependency of city logistics activities, decision making with limited information and stakeholders’ preference for personal objectives over system efficiency. Accordingly, the key to understanding the causes of inefficiency in the city logistics domain is understanding the interaction between heterogeneous stakeholders of the system. With the capabilities of representing a system in a natural and flexible way, agent based modelling (ABM) is a promising alternative for the city logistics domain. This research focuses on developing a framework for the successful implementation of the ABM approach for the city logistics domain. The framework includes various elements – a multi-perspective semantic data model (i.e. ontology) and its validation, the development of an agent base model using this ontology, and a validation approach for the agent-based model. Conclusively, the framework shows that a rigorous course can be taken to successfully implement agent based modelling approach for the city logistics domain

Framework for Modelling Multi-stakeholder City Logistics Domain Using the Agent based Modelling Approach

Efficiency of city logistics activities suffers due to conflicting personal preferences and distributed decision making by multiple city logistics stakeholders. This is exacerbated by interdependency of city logistics activities, decision making with limited information and stakeholders’ preference for personal objectives over system efficiency. Accordingly, the key to understanding the causes of inefficiency in the city logistics domain is understanding the interaction between heterogeneous stakeholders of the system. With the capabilities of representing a system in a natural and flexible way, agent based modelling (ABM) is a promising alternative for the city logistics domain. This research focuses on developing a framework for the successful implementation of the ABM approach for the city logistics domain. The framework includes various elements – a multi-perspective semantic data model (i.e. ontology) and its validation, the development of an agent base model using this ontology, and a validation approach for the agent-based model. Conclusively, the framework shows that a rigorous course can be taken to successfully implement agent based modelling approach for the city logistics domain

IDENTIFYING DOMINANT STAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVES ON URBAN FREIGHT POLICIES: A Q-ANALYSIS ON URBAN CONSOLIDATION CENTRES IN THE NETHERLANDS

Cities’ sustainability strategies seem to aim at the reduction of the negative impacts of urban freight transport. In the past decades, many public and private initiatives have struggled to gain broad stakeholder support and thus remain viable. Researchers and practitioners have only recently recognised stakeholder acceptance of urban freight solutions as a challenge. A first step in achieving convergence is to understand stakeholder needs, preferences and viewpoints. This paper proposes and applies an approach to identify the main stakeholder perspectives in the domain of urban freight transport. We use Q-methodology, which originates from social sciences and psychology, to record subjective positions and identify the dominant ones. We explain the approach, operationalise the method for the domain of urban freight transport and apply it to stakeholder groups in the Netherlands. We find four dominant perspectives, reflecting how stakeholders normally take positions in the urban freight dialogue. Important findings concern disparities between industry associations and some of their membership, divergent views about the expected role of public administration, and the observation that the behaviour of shippers and Logistics Service Providers (LSP) appears to be inconsistent with their beliefs. All these factors together can act as a barrier to the implementation of urban freight consolidation concepts. The Q-methodology is valuable for eliciting perspectives in urban freight and is a promising tool to facilitate stakeholder dialogue and, eventually, convergence