Road freight transport has increased dramatically in the past decades within the urban conglomeration, and prognoses for the future indicates that the growth has not come to an end. The negative aspects of this growth are most visible in all European urban areas: congestion to which lorries and small delivery vehicles contribute, noise emissions, emission of pollutants and accidents are problems that decrease the quality of the urban environment substantially.

The problems of freight transport are still increasing even if more and more cities are imposing limitations for delivery of shopping centers by heavy vehicles. Time windows for delivery were introduced. Initiatives for urban freight distribution were undertaken. Although most of the developments mentioned above have started only recently (roughly in the last decade), first results can yet be identified. Moreover, some first results seem very counterintuitive: instead of reducing congestion, some Urban Distribution Centers generate more freight vehicle movements than before.

Objectives and apporach

A comparative analysis of these effects for different cities and situations in Europe has not been carried out until this moment. Within this project, the socio-economic and environmental impacts of changes in freight transport and door-to-door delivery in a variety of European conurbations will be analyzed in a systematic and innovative way.

In order to do that, CITY FREIGHT will carry out an analysis of some selected supply chains schemes that are already functioning in Europe and carry out an evaluation of their impacts in an urban context, making use of a common assessment methodology

More precisely, the objectives of the CITY FREIGHT project are the following:

• Identify and analyze working of innovative and promising logistic schemes in the seven countries represented in the project consortium as well as the urban policies which could accompany their implementation in order to promote a more sustainable development;
• Set up a list of criteria and a common assessment method for evaluating those logistic schemes and the related accompanying policies (legal framework, land use planning, road traffic regulation, pricing,);
• Analyze their internal technical, economical and environmental efficiency;
• Design, for one city or one urban region in each country, one or more implementation scenarios of these schemes and related accompanying policies;
• Assess and optimize the scenarios according to the criteria of a sustainable development of the city;
• Present guidelines for implementing integrated strategies that could be recommended as "Best Practices";
• Disseminate and exploit the Best Practice Guidelines through collaboration with the Local Authorities for the design of concrete implementation plans of integrated strategies in each of the case study cities.

Public administration is becoming more aware of the importance and diversity of the factors of urban freight traffic. In the past the actions were mainly limited in controlling and restricting road traffic. At present there are significantly more areas of interest, such as economic efficiency, spatial planning, land management and environmental protection.

In that general context, the aim of the CITY FREIGHT project is to provide guidance to the range of interested stakeholders (government, regional, or local authorities, network operators, shippers and consignees on the Best Practices for analyzing their city freight problems as well as for designing and implementing integrated strategies to solve them.