City Distribution and Urban Freight Transport: Multiple Perspectives

City distribution plays a key role in supporting urban lifestyles helping to serve and retain industrial and trading activities, and contributing to the competitiveness of regional industry. Despite these positive effects, it also generates negative (economic, environmental and social) impacts on cities worldwide. Relatively little attention has been paid to these issues by researchers and policymakers until recently. The analyses found in City Distribution and Urban Freight Transport aim to improve knowledge in this important area by recognizing and evaluating the problems, with a focus on urban freight transport system.

This book offers a thorough evaluation of city distribution and urban freight transport, highlighting the importance of developing methodologies that reflect and integrate stakeholder perceptions. Case studies demonstrate that knowledge and awareness in the area of urban freight transport is low, and that broadening knowledge in this area is integral to the innovation of new urban freight policies. The authors argue that the main challenge for researchers lies in developing methodologies that facilitate communication and cooperation between the different actors, citing that this can be achieved by defining either a common evaluation framework with quantitative indicators or an evaluation framework where the points of view have been explicitly modeled.

This will be of interest to researchers, city planners and policymakers. Students and scholars of development, public policy, and urban studies will also find much of relevance in this important volume.

Contributors: A. Comi, Á. Costa, L. Dablanc, W. Debauche, V. Gatta, R. Gevaers, P. Hebes, C. Macharis, J. Maes, E. Marcucci, S. Melo, J. Menge, A. Nuzzolo, M. Percoco, H.J. Quak, A. Stathopoulos, C. Vaghi, E. Valeri, E. Van de Voorde, T. Vanelslander, E. Van Hoeck, T. van Lier, S. Verlinde, F. Witlox

Edited by Cathy Macharis, Professor, Vrije Universiteit Brussel-Research group MOBI (Mobility, Logistics and Automotive Technology), dep. BUTO, Belgium and Sandra Melo, Senior Researcher, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto (FEUP) and the Institute of Mechanical Engineering (IDMEC) – Instituto Superior Técnico de Lisboa, Portugal