by Walther Ploos van Amstel
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the relevance of goods delivery in urban areas. However, this activity often generates a negative environmental impact. Several technologies have been proposed in recent years to reduce it, thus forming a complex innovation landscape characterized by different levels of maturity and effects on the City Logistics (CL) system. This complexity …
The urban freight sector provides an essential service by delivering goods that shops, companies, and households require at a specific place and time. However, the growth of e-commerce and the dawn of on-demand logistics (after this ODL) have raised citizens’ expectations of logistics systems, further stressing them and increasing their operational and environmental costs. There …
Dutch retailer Albert Heijn wants to supply centers of large cities quietly and cleanly. Therefore, Albert Heijn is accelerating the sustainability of transport to stores and customers with its partners. From the end of 2022, Albert Heijn will use 100% electric transport for home delivery of groceries and supplying its shops in the center of …
THEO is a semi-autonomous, emission-free, bot-as-a-service trike optimized for bike lanes, maximizing functionality and safety. When bike lanes are unavailable, they are also swift, lightweight, and agile enough to run in conventional car lanes and travel around in a city without causing congestion. THEO will seamlessly integrate with the backend of on-demand delivery providers, such …
While the number of deliveries has been increasing rapidly, infrastructure such as parking and building configurations has changed less quickly, given limited space and funds. This may lead to an imbalance between supply and demand, preventing the current resources from meeting the future needs of urban freight activities. A study by the Department of Civil …
A new paper by Mikael Kervall and Henrik Pålsson presents a systematic review covering 93 peer-reviewed journal articles. The study was designed to advance earlier research in this area by providing a system perspective on barriers to development in urban freight systems. The theoretical knowledge about these barriers was analyzed and synthesized, the relationships between …
Finding a sustainable mobility solution for the future is one of the most competitive challenges in the logistics and mobility sector. As a result, policymakers, researchers, and companies are working intensively to provide novel, environmentally friendly, and sustainable options. While autonomous car-sharing services have been introduced as a promising solution, an innovative alternative is the …
New logistics concepts can save cities from gridlock even as city logistics volumes are rising. For example, electric cargo bikes and other light electric vehicles handle inner city deliveries from strategically located micro-hubs, replacing diesel-powered vans. For logisticians, it means no inner city access restrictions, no search for parking spaces, and no shortage of drivers …
Growing urbanization, climate change, and the increasing use of home delivery require new ideas on how to solve transportation-related problems in urban areas. The cargo bike, once a common mode of transport, played a minor role in the last decades of motorization. Yet, the cargo bike is ideally suited for inner-city transportation. It is quiet, …
While cities focus on making logistics more and more environmentally sustainable by implementing “green deals,” the potential impact of the increase of cargo bikes remains unclear. A thesis by Groningen student Youri Meerstra investigates perceived safety that residents experience with a potential increase in cargo bikes, in this case, the residents of the inner city …