URBAN LOGISTICS
Future of Urban Logistics
Ignacio Magallón Hernández Sr. Innovation Consultant Bax & Company
Amy McCready PR & Communications Officer, Bax & Company
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ith a growing global population concentrated in cities, urban freight transport (UFT) – defined as all movements of goods into, out from, through or within the urban area – is broadly recognised as a fundamental part of economic trade. This growing number of vehicle and transport needs in urban areas is having a severe impact on cities’ quality of life. According to ALICE (Alliance for Logistics Innovation through Collaboration in Europe), urban freight is a major component of traffic (10-15% of vehicle equivalent miles), emissions (25% of urban transport CO2 and 30 to 50% of NOx and particles) and noise in cities. At the same time, consumers habits are shifting towards on-demand solutions that are able to satisfy their needs for faster delivery, putting even more pressure on the current logistics solutions. This trend is confirmed by the increasing numbers of e-commerce. Miebach Consulting
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URBAN TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE MAY 2021
analysed this situation in their white paper The Urban Distribution of Goods: Challenges and Solutions, and found that in Spain alone, the market share of e-commerce has grown by 37% in the last 3 years, representing up to 8.9% of total sales in 2017 and expecting to grow up to 11.4% by 2020. This same study shows also that the growth of urban deliveries is highly influenced by the increasing habit of customers making small orders each day while they demand more immediacy – same day or less than 2 hours – between the purchase and the receipt of their orders. Under these circumstances, urban freight services need to quickly react and explore new concepts and developments. The roadmap of the two main European networks, ALICE and ERTRAC (European Road Transport Research Advisory Council) clearly define what the proposed solutions need to focus on: • Increasing energy efficiency, to therefore improve the sustainability and livability of cities • Improving reliability of systems, increasing customer satisfaction • Increasing safety and security, reducing the risk of road injuries and fatalities
What is the path for cities to make urban logistics more sustainable? At Bax & Company, we see that the path towards greener, flexible and secure UFT requires the deployment of innovative, efficient and sustainable solutions for all components of the system: vehicles, infrastructure and services. This includes two main lines of work:
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