Category «Research»

The status of SULPs in Europe: ULaaDS webinar report

While Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) are becoming a requirement for all large TEN-T nodes, Sustainable Urban Logistic Plans (SULPs) are less widespread and well-known across European cities. Therefore, Bax & Company, together with EUROCITIES and Rupprecht Consult organized a ULaaDS session to explore the status of SULPs across Europe and zoom into the example …

Business model design for campus-based autonomous deliveries: a Swedish case study

Autonomous deliveries are being tested on university campuses worldwide, but the impact of such technology on the business models of freight service providers is poorly understood. Through interviews, workshops, and site visits, a new paper by Jon Williamsson explores the potential impact of autonomous deliveries on the business model of a campus-based freight services provider …

Urban Consolidation Centres: from the perspective of suppliers

An Urban Consolidation Centre (UCC) can decrease the number of freight vehicles and their mileage in urban areas. In practice, however, UCCs often rely on subsidies and seldom make it past their starting period. Understanding how UCCs affect urban freight transport is mostly based on mathematical models and on the opinions of stakeholders who do …

FlexCURB project to improve last-mile operations in European cities

FlexCURB, an exciting new initiative focused on enhancing urban last-mile operations funded by EIT Urban Mobility, officially kicked off on Tuesday 11 January 2022. POLIS members Leuven and Toulouse will be involved, along with the cities of Strasbourg and Funchal. Thanks to the contribution of innovation-oriented cities and top urban mobility as partners, this project …

Sohjoa Last Mile: developing autonomous mobility

The EU-funded Sohjoa, Last Mile project, has released a video and key messages to support the deployment and development of shared autonomous public transport services in Europe. The key messages include policy recommendations for the international, European, and national levels. Supported by the EU’s Interreg Baltic Sea Region program, the project seeks to raise awareness of …

An exploratory study on integrated logistics and mobility hubs

Passenger and logistics transport challenges are approached as two different ecosystems despite the scarce space in cities. Therefore, policymakers called upon to tackle negative transport externalities face spatial challenges. However, despite a history in which both ecosystems have already been combined and the emphasis in the (limited) existing studies on how promising the combination can …

Defining urban freight microhubs: a case study analysis

Urban freight distribution has confronted several challenges, including adverse environmental, social, and economic impacts. Many city logistics initiatives that use the concept of Urban Consolidation Centers (UCCs) have failed. The failure of many UCCs does not mean that the idea of additional terminals or microhubs should be rejected. There is limited knowledge about the advantages …

Research: Citywide parcel deliveries via crowd shipping minimizing efforts for crowdsourcers

Most current crowdsourced logistics aim to minimize systems cost and maximize delivery capacity, but the efforts of crowdsourcers such as drivers are almost ignored. In the delivery process, drivers usually need to take long-distance detours in hitchhiking rides based package deliveries. In a new paper by Cheng et al. (2022), researchers propose an approach that …

The Road Freight Zero initiative

Road freight currently generates 15% of European CO2 emissions. About 70% of those emissions come from medium- and heavy-duty trucking (MDT/HDT). These are the hardest-to-abate segments. Nevertheless, there is a growing consensus that the zero-emission (ZE) truck industry is on course to deliver competitive business cases for the decarbonization of these fleets – through battery …