Achieving greater sustainability in the urban distribution operations

Background:

Road movements are very important in goods distribution in urban areas. Economic, environmental and social impacts associated with this freight activity are significant and there are policy options available to those responsible for regulation. A wide range of possible solutions to problems posed by urban freight operations also exists including approaches related to: consolidation, facilities, vehicle design, information capture and utilisation, and non-road modes.

There is a lack of consensus about the problems posed by urban freight transport. Much of the literature starts from the assumption that urban freight is a problem without justifying this assumption.

More specifically in the case of light goods vehicles (LGVs, i.e. goods vehicles less than 3.5 tonnes gross vehicle weight) they are of ever-greater importance in terms of the final delivery of many time-critical, high value goods and are also widely used in industries that provide a wide range of critical support services. There are almost five times as many LGVs as there are HGVs (goods vehicles over 3.5 tonnes gross vehicle weight) currently licensed in Britain. The LGV fleet in Britain is growing at a faster rate than the HGV fleet, and the LGV fleet travels more than twice as many vehicle kilometres each year than the total HGV fleet. LGVs perform a far greater proportion of their total distance travelled in urban areas than HGVs, and consume 25% of the total diesel and 3% of the total petrol used by all motorised road transport vehicles in Britain.

Many topics concerned with LGV activities especially in relation to urban operations, and the associated social and environmental impacts have received relatively little research attention.

There have been far fewer research projects and data collections exercises for LGVs than for HGVs in the UK. Relatively little of the literature identified is concerned with the social and environmental impacts of LGV operations. Also, published results of government surveys of van operators contain results at a national rather than urban scale. Possibilities for dissaggregation can be investigated.

Objectives: