Sandra Melo

City Distribution and Urban Freight Transport

City distribution plays a key role in supporting urban lifestyles, helping to serve and retain industrial and trading activities, and contributing to the competitiveness of regional industry. Despite these positive effects, it also generates negative (economic, environmental and social) impacts on cities worldwide. Relatively little attention has been paid to these issues by researchers and policymakers until recently. The analyses found in City Distribution and Urban Freight Transport aim to improve knowledge in this important area by recognizing and evaluating the problems, with a focus on urban freight transport systems.

Definition of a Set of Indicators to Evaluate the Performance of Urban Goods Distribution Initiatives

City distribution plays a key role in supporting urban lifestyles, helping to serve and retain industrial and trading activities, and contributing to the competitiveness of regional industry. Despite these positive effects, it also generates negative (economic, environmental and social) impacts on cities worldwide. Relatively little attention has been paid to these issues by researchers and policymakers until recently. The analyses found in City Distribution and Urban Freight Transport aim to improve knowledge in this important area by recognizing and evaluating the problems, with a focus on urban freight transport systems.

Evaluation of Urban Goods Distribution Initiatives: An Empirical Overview in the Portuguese Context

City distribution plays a key role in supporting urban lifestyles, helping to serve and retain industrial and trading activities, and contributing to the competitiveness of regional industry. Despite these positive effects, it also generates negative (economic, environmental and social) impacts on cities worldwide. Relatively little attention has been paid to these issues by researchers and policymakers until recently. The analyses found in City Distribution and Urban Freight Transport aim to improve knowledge in this important area by recognizing and evaluating the problems, with a focus on urban freight transport systems.

The Cost and Effectiveness of Sustainable City Logistics Policies Using Small Electric Vehicles

Originality/value When considering the goal of promoting SEV as a sustainable city logistics policy, under a methodology focused on mobility, operational performance, and environmental externalities, the authors concluded (a) the replacement rate SEV:van is determinant to make a decision on whether or not to use SEVs replacing vans, (b) SEVs are economically competitive with conventional vans if the replacement rate is 1:1, (c) SEVs have a better performance at the street level rather than at the city level, (d) SEVs can be used with normal traffic as a niche of market (lower than 5%), and (e) SEVs benefits exist, but they are not significant enough to drive suppliers for their adoption.

The 4 A’s of Sustainable Logistics

Mobility and logistics activities have been fundamental to economic development and social well-being for centuries, but it is only over the past 50 years that this has received interest as a major field of academic study and as a key determinant of, for example, business performance. In the last decades, the evolution towards globalisation and the opportunities presented by technological innovation have greatly increased the importance of mobility and logistics worldwide. Nevertheless, the growing environmental concern of citizens and governments and the widespread introduction of the concept of sustainability have simultaneously placed increasing pressure on public and private activities to take all effects related to such activities into account. Logistics, and especially freight transport representing its most physical component, has accordingly received much attention in the sustainability debate in recent years, due to the numerous external effects and the widespread effects on virtually all individuals. This has forced stakeholders involved in logistics processes to address the issue of sustainability, leading to the birth of terms combining adjectives such as sustainable, ecological, green, clean and lean with domain specific nouns such as supply chain management, logistics, freight transport and urban freight. Some specific terms such as logistics shades of green have also been introduced.

Car Sharing Systems as a Sustainable Transport Policy: A Case Study from Lisbon, Portugal

Originality/value Overall, the results obtained from this research work quantify the contribution of car sharing to sustainable transport and highlights the positive effects of promoting a technological shift. These facts reinforce the need for public policies to support the integration of car sharing within the city’s solutions to promote a more sustainable mobility. The successful deployment of car sharing systems can be influenced by policies targeting features such as allocation of parking, the fees and complementarity with public transport, signage and markings, and marketing of social and environmental benefits.

Relationships between Goods Distribution and Public Transport in Urban Areas--The Case of a Hypermarket in Porto

Abstract The behaviour of the key stakeholders in city logistics, as defined in Taniguchi et al. (2001) (e.g. shippers, residents, freight carriers and administrators), can be affected by the decisions taken by other stakeholders. The case presented in this paper reports on the result of a bus line extension up to the main entry of hypermarket in Porto Metropolitan Area. Passengers reported changes in their shopping habits and senior people reported the utilisation of the home delivery service for the first time after the line extension. It appears that the existence of home delivery service provided by the hypermarket contributes to the increase of the patronage in public transport.