How to improve the eco-efficiency of urban goods distribution

1. How to improve the eco-efficiency of urban goods distribution Romeo Danielis - Università di Trieste Lucia Rotaris - Università di Trieste Edoardo Marcucci - Università di Urbino Nectar Cluster 1 - Seminar "From sustainability to ecoefficiency in transportation”, 15th – 16th October 2005 , Fiesole, Firenze (Italy)

2. Urban goods distribution city logistics: the possibility of co-ordinating urban goods storage and distribution, as an alternative to the prevailing organization base on individual decision makers

3. Motivations • Pollution • Noise • Safety • Intrusion • Congestion • Energy saving • Transport cost • High share of commercial traffic • Low load factor • Lack of loading\unloading facilities • High proportion of own account transport • Re-balancing between commercial and transport activities • Political considerations

4. Conflicting views and interestsi • Transport operators: cost, time and flexibility • Economic activities: efficiency, lead time, security • Consumers: cost, diffusion, variety • Citizens (socio-economic): minimum impact on other urban activities and functions

5. Decision-making with conflicting goals and uncertainty • Local administrators takes decisions facing • Conflicting interests conflittuali (times, loading\unloading areas, size and type of vehicles, size and storage facilities, pedestrian areas, public transport) • Tastes uncertainty (e-commerce) • Technological uncertainty (fuels) • Behavioural uncertainty (acceptance of road pricing measure)

6. Suggestions from economic theory

7. Theoretical motivations for public intervention – Areas of improvement with respect to the status quo situation • Externalities • environmental • congestion • Insufficient consolidation • Inefficiencies in the supply chain

8. 1A - Environmental externalities • Pollution, noise, visual intrusion, safety • Borne by all citizens • Many contributers • Awareness, free riding incentive • Public intervention needed (no private cost advantages ) • Regulation • Fiscal pollicies • Revenue ear-marking

9. 1B. Congestion Externalities • Mainly within the transport system • Borne directly by transport operators and indirectly by shopkeepers and consumers • Private cost advantages, possibly transferred to consumers

10. Insufficient consolidation • Foregone economies of scale and scope • It is necessary to distinguish between for-hire and own account transport • Own\account is farther from optimality • Third-party transport might face coordination cost and lack of information (vehicle planning and routing) • Inadequate firms’ dimension • Excess competion

11. Inefficiencies in supply chain • Co-ordination among the actors (producer, wholesale, trasport operators, retailer, consumer). • Various difficulties: information, conflict of interest, communication.

12. Decision-support tools from economic and engineering sciences

13. Models and analysis • Forecasting and simulation models of flows, routes, etc. • Preference analysis • Behavioural studies • Economic and land use models

14. Intermediate conclusions • Difficult task for local administrators • Knowledge of conflictiing interests and goals • Information, monitoring, experimentation, partecipation

15. Policy options • Regulation • Road pricing • Urban distribution center

16. Regulation: description Access restrictions to the urban area, or to the loading/unloading area located within the urban perimeter, according to: • the characteristics of the vehicle (length, width, height); • the time during which those activities are performed; • the truck routes.

17. Regulation: issues • Enforcement and enforcement cost • Costs imposed on transport operators and retailers • Co-ordination with urban planning • Flexibility and heterogeneity among cities

18. Regulation: costs and benefits

19. Regulation: innovations • Optimization technology • Reserved lanes shared with public transport

20. Road pricing: description • Polluter pays principle • Loading factor • Vehicle type • route • Objectives: • Congestion reduction • revenue raising • Modal transfer

21. Road pricing: discussion • Passenger and freight transport? • Relative fee • Implementing an efficiency-inducing fee • Effect on congestion • Who bears the fee • Trasport operators, retailers or consumers? • Spatial effect (urban sprawling) • Acceptabilty

22. Urban distribution Centers: definition • Freight platforms o Freight villages • Urban distribution Centers(UDC): • French Model • Dutch Model • German Model

23. Urban distribution Centers: costs and benefits

24. Urban distribution centers: issues • Type of goods • Location • Management • Acceptability • Efficiency and financial sustainability • Volumes • User fees

25. Urban distribution Centers: volumes How to create volume: • Authoritarian • Total access restriction • Discouraging: • Regulation and\or pricing • Partnerships • With transport operators • Spontaneous • Efficiency and higher services

26. Urban distribution Centers: international experiences • Delusion and doubts on economic sustainability • Successes and failures • Optimization issues • Compatibility with private optimization efforts

27. Conclusions

28. Acceptability of policy measures • Stakeholders’ preferences for UDC (Regan and Golob, 2005) • Interactive Agent Conjoint Analysis (David Henher, 2003) of stakeholder preferences for policy measures

29. Thanks for your attention!

30. Respect of rules

31. Rules in some Italian cities

32. Rules in the city of Cordoba

33. Automatic control system in Barcellona

34. Shared reserved lanes in Barcellona