This paper highlights the findings of a two year research project, Light/medium commercial vehicle use in four urban centres, focusing on light to medium commercial vehicles operating within urban areas, rather than long haul (inter-regional) heavy freight vehicles. Light to medium commercial vehicles may be delivering or collecting goods or carrying out a servicing activity (e.g. installation of equipment, maintenance, cleaning, etc) to the organisation they are visiting. Our study is exploratory in parts, primarily because very little information is available in published reports and papers regarding light to medium commercial vehicle trip patterns in urban areas. We identified four main purposes of this project: 1. to qualitatively clarify the nature, as well as the drivers (e.g. just-in-time, consumer preference, inventory), of urban-based light and medium commercial vehicle movements; 2. to the extent feasible within a case study approach, categorise the types of movements and usage of transport services by organisational purpose (i.e. food outlet, retail, services, etc); 3. based on key informant interviews, comment on the impact different policy tools might have on such movements; 4. provide the foundation for modelling of such movements (e.g., for forecasting). (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E214666.
Abstract