Evaluation of urban goods distribution initiatives: an empirical overview on the portuguese context

• Type: Chapter or Part of a Book
• Date: 2011

Authors

Sandra Melo (Author) FEUP

Book

Title: City Distribution And Urban Freight Transport - Multiple Perspectives

1º Edition

Pages: 234-260

ISBN: 9780857932747

Publisher: Edward Elgar

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology > Civil engineering

Other information

Abstract (EN): The topic of urban goods distribution (UGD), as well as the closely related subject of freight traffi c, has been underestimated by researchers and planners. It has been treated as a marginal issue of passenger traffic and usually studied in an inappropriate geographical scale, not taking into account the specificities of freight. Throughout the last decade, increasing concern with key concepts such as mobility and sustainability has, however, contributed to an increase in research on UGD. Research is now taking its fi rst steps concerning this issue and, as has happened in the past with other recent themes, the first tendency has been to look at solutions adopted by other well- known perspectives (like that of the passenger) and apply them to the new specific context (that of freight). This chapter, which results from more extensive research into the topic of UGD, tries to steer clear of that tendency, applying a tailor- made methodology to the study of this subject. The next section presents mobility and sustainability criteria as the two main pillars to validate alternative solutions to UGD as ‘good practices’. To put those evaluation criteria into practice, a set of indicators is adopted, developed and validated for the particular study of UGD (Melo, 2010). The set reflects the stakeholders’ main interests in urban freight (public and private objectives) as briefly described in the section. I then present the case study that was carried out in Porto, which explicitly shows how to consider mobility and sustainability criteria on the evaluation of alternative practices in UGD, highlighting the impacts on the main stakeholders and the respective geographical effect of the initiatives. The methodology adopted for the case study evaluates 'good practices’ through the use of modelling tools, from both passenger and freight perspectives, considering the specificities of the topic and the local intrinsic characteristics of implementation. The base conditions of the area are presented in a further section, and support the simulation of scenarios described in the following section. The simulation exercise is carried out through a systemic model specifically developed to the city of Porto and using the microscopic traffic simulator AIMSUN. This software calculates each of the output indicators adopted to measure mobility and sustainability under public and private objectives. The quantification of three scenarios is then presented and compared with a laissez- faire scenario. Finally, conclusions on the empirical evaluation are presented. This analysis allows us to assert in advance whether the initiative can be considered good practice in terms of mobility and sustainability to supply the study area and consequently whether it could or should be implemented.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific