Urban freight planning and operations need to fully recognise the economic, demographic, technological, societal and legal challenges that will shape the mobility of goods in urban areas in the future. To help cities implement their urban freight initiatives, a better understanding of new trends and challenges impacting the movement of goods in cities is necessary. This Observatory provides data and analysis on some of the most important, or less well known, trends that will shape the urban mobility of goods in the future, including: • Logistics land uses, logistics real estate, and logistics sprawl, which is the spatial deconcentration of logistics facilities and distribution centres in metropolitan areas. Warehouses tend to relocate to outer suburban areas with good access to highway interchanges, large available land space, affordable rents, and access to employees. • E-commerce, e-grocery, and instant deliveries (on-demand delivery service within two hours). E-commerce adds hundreds of thousands of deliveries in urban areas every day. The development of instant deliveries is based on the use of mobile apps which connect couriers — individuals, self-contractors or employees — to shippers and consumers. The full version of the report is available online at http://www.citylab-project.eu/deliverables/D2_1.pdf. (Author/publisher)
Abstract