A framework for considering policies to encourage sustainable urban freight traffic and
goods/service flows
Summary
Report Authors:
Julian Allen, Stephen Anderson, Michael Browne and Peter Jones.
March 2000 |
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The Freight and Logistics unit within the
Transport Studies Group has completed an exploratory study of urban freight transport in
the UK. The project was funded by the EPSRC as part of the Sustainable Cities Research
Programme. The aim of the research was to develop and apply a framework for understanding
urban freight transport and logistics in its broadest sense, reflecting the breadth of
freight and service-related transport activity in urban areas. |
During the course of research many retailing, manufacturing, freight transport, logistics
and service companies participated in interviews and group discussions. Through this
primary research, we have been able to investigate:
current urban goods and service transport
operations in the UK,
the problems experienced by freight transport and service companies in
supplying goods and services in urban areas,
policy measures that could help to make urban freight transport more
sustainable,
initiatives that companies could implement to make urban freight transport more
sustainable.
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The work illustrates the range and scale of freight and commercial service requirements of
city businesses, showing how these requirements are met by distribution and logistics
services and the resultant vehicle movements. The framework developed to investigate these
issues has proved very useful in gaining an understanding of:
- the relationship between goods/service flows and vehicle activity,
- the decision-making process that takes place between supply chain parties that
determines how and why vehicle activity takes place in the way that it does,
- how supply chains would react to new transport policy measures and the effect that this
would have on vehicle activity,
- how supply chains or individual companies in the supply chain could alter their
behaviour to reduce environmental impacts of vehicle operations and the barriers to these
changes being implemented, and
- how changes to urban freight transport could be discussed and planned by supply chain
parties, and policy makers.
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The following reports are available for downloading in Adobe Acrobat format:
Summary
Report
Final
Report 1: Approach taken to the project
Final
Report 2: Current goods and service operations in urban areas
Final
Report 3: Making urban goods and service operations more sustainable: policy
measures and company initiatives
Paper presented
at the ISTP 4th International Conference on Transport held in Lisbon, July 2000
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