I attended a global conference on urban freight last week, organized by Metrans in Los Angeles – a mega-city known for its extensive asphalt and notorious traffic jams.
The conference featured inspiring insights on zero-emission vehicles, paying for loading and unloading in the city, digital twins, cargo bikes, space for logistics in urban areas, smart AI route planning methods, and an integrated approach based on the Physical Internet. It offered an outstanding balance between theory and practice, drawn from many living labs. And it was fantastic to meet so many engaged young professionals.
But the elephant in the room remains the behavior of shippers, logistics service providers, receivers, and governments. And also the lack of understanding about that often quite logical behavior. What are we really going to do to manage the growth of city logistics and transform its negative impact into something positive for everyone involved? What fundamentally different choices are we willing to make? Without those choices, we will continue to tinker at the edges.
Many new conferences are already scheduled for the coming year. What if they all started with a shared long-term goal? With the question: what impact do we want to achieve – and by when?
Every presentation should then begin with: what problem are you solving (and why)? Why does your solution make a difference in the harsh realities of city logistics? And what do you need – from shippers, logistics service providers, receivers, and governments – to make it happen? Together, we must work towards a positive impact of city logistics.
Walther Ploos van Amstel.