Best Practices in Urban Freight Management: Lessons from an International Survey

Laetitia Dablanc (1) , Geneviève Giuliano (2) , Kevin Holliday (2) , Thomas Obrien (3)

1 IFSTTAR/AME/SPLOTT - Systèmes Productifs, Logistique, Organisation des Transports et Travail
2 USC - University of Southern California
3 CCPE - CITT - College of Continuing and Professional Education - Center for International Trade and Transportation

Freight movement is essential to the function of metropolitan areas, yet it generates many externalities, including congestion, air pollution, noise, and greenhouse gas emissions. Metropolitan areas around the world are seeking ways to manage urban freight and its impacts. This paper presents results from a comprehensive international survey of urban freight management strategies. Our purpose was to examine the effectiveness of alternative strategies and assess their transferability for broad US implementation. We use three categories to describe urban freight strategies: last mile/first mile deliveries and pickups, environmental mitigation, and trade node strategies. We find that there are many possibilities for better managing urban freight and its impacts including labeling and certification programs, incentive-based voluntary emissions reductions programs, local land use and parking policies, and more stringent national fuel efficiency and emissions standards for heavy duty trucks. More research is needed on intra-metropolitan freight movements and on the effectiveness of existing policies and strategies.

Mots clés: TRANSPORT DE MARCHANDISE; ZONE URBAINE; LOGISTIQUE; TRANSPORT DE MARCHANDISES

Domaines: Autre; Environnement et Société

Laetitia Dablanc, Geneviève Giuliano, Kevin Holliday, Thomas Obrien. Best Practices in Urban Freight Management: Lessons from an International Survey. Transportation Research Record, 2014, 2379, pp 29-38. ⟨10.3141/2379-04⟩. ⟨hal-00942846⟩