In urban areas light goods are often delivered by heavy vehicles covering only short distances. This is problematic in sensitive inner city areas. The European project Cyclelogistics Ahead, a follow up on the first Cyclelogistics project in 2011, aims at reducing the negative impact of motorised urban freight.
Unexploited potential
On the one hand, there is a large unexploited potential for zero emission urban logistics. On the other hand, there is a lot of existing knowledge, which has resulted in only few implementations. Although many European projects have already produced a multitude of good guidelines and strategies on how to work towards zero emission urban logistics, these concepts and plans have rarely been implemented.
Measures
The rapidly evolving nature of urban logistics and goods delivery (think about e-commerce) requires a mix of measures undertaken by different stakeholders to tackle the issues. The consortium of the Cyclelogistics Ahead project formed an interesting mix of cities, cycle delivery companies and consultancy companies in the field of mobility. This resulted in a more bottom-up approach, which included practical implementations, realized by local government bodies and small enterprises.
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