The Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Freight Systems (CoE-SUFS) announced that TU Delft, a longtime partner has a new massive open online course (MOOC) entitled Sustainable Urban Freight Transport. The MOOC will be available on EDX as of 2nd May 2018.
This free 5-week course offers students and professionals an introduction to urban logistics. The MOOC is the result of a collaboration between partners of the global COE-SUFS network and provides a unique cross-cultural treatment of the subject, as experienced in cities around the world.
For more information please visit the website.
Backgrounds
Life in the city relies on the smooth operation of urban logistics. Everything from retail to services, construction to waste collection rely on an efficient and reliable freight transport system. However, with the increasing pressures of urbanization, this has to be balanced with the environmental and social impacts caused by transport activity.
This is the challenge of City Logistics, a field of study that has significant practical implications for the world and the cities we live in. It is not merely a question of what is involved, but what can be done about urban freight transport to improve it for the sake of economic efficiency, quality of life, and sustainability.
The course
From a systematic scientific foundation of the field, this course will take you on a journey to learn how city logistics is understood and practiced in cities around the world. The TU Delft instructors, members of a renowned global expert network, will teach you the basics of this highly complex social system. Using their experience in real-world projects, they will illustrate how the knowledge learnt in this course is applied across industry and the public sector.
This course caters primarily to university students or professionals working in urban transport infrastructure planning or logistics management. Whether you are simply curious about the topic or you intend to develop a career in these fields, this course will give you the tools you need to understand the complexities of urban freight transport systems.
The course emphasizes the theoretical foundation, the rigorous evaluation, and a multi-disciplinary approach to this complex area. Course participants will benefit from numerous case studies of best practice in selected cities around the world, in a variety of business settings. The emphasis on the global perspective is particularly relevant, since an understanding of local culture and political climate is an important factor in the success of any city logistics intervention. The course will provide an avenue for students to learn from their peers about the challenges faced in their respective cities, and how to apply the principles learned to the challenges faced in their own cities.
What you will learn
- To identify the main logistics challenges facing cities around the world
- To understand the complex nature of urban freight transport systems
- To evaluate freight traffic impacts
- To explore the different approaches to solving urban freight transport problems
- To identify the research methods used to develop and apply knowledge in this field